FIFTH ESTATE: ARMENIAN BLOGGERS GET READY FOR POLITICAL CAMPAIGN

On the threshold of municipal assembly elections in the capital Yerevan (May 31), Armenian bloggers are actively addressing the campaign and forthcoming vote in their blogs. Still, many of them say blogs are unlikely to have any significant influence in the elections. In the past two years blogs have been extensively and successfully used for campaigning purposes, in addition to being a primary source of information for a certain period. The most popular bloggers are unanimous – starting from summer 2007 blogs began to interest political forces, because they found out that blogs enable them to spread not only information, but also opinions, campaigning, and very often misinformation as well. Nevertheless, campaign blogs are rather active. Some of the political parties participating in the Yerevan City Council elections periodically refresh their blogs. The blog of the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) (http://www.blog.payqar.net/) is very active. Not only the records written to the blogs are in special forms, but also they have a considerable number of responses. Since April 18, the pro-establishment Prosperous Armenia Party increased the number of its blogs: currently along with its blog on WordPress (http://bhkam.wordpress.com/), all those interested in blog information about the Party may also visit Prosperous Armenia’s websites on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/bargavach), in the Fotoblog and Fotobooket blogs. However, in spite of such abundance, the blogs of Prosperous Armenia do not seem to arouse great interest, judging by the fact that none of the last ten records written on WordPress’ platform has comments. Moreover, the records of Prosperous Armenia’s blogs are mainly more official news than comments comprising personal viewpoint or position typical of blogs. Other political forces either do not have websites or their websites are temporarily out of order (under reconstructed), for example, Gagik Beglaryan’s (Republican Party) website (http://www.beglaryan.com), and the Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) Party’s website (www.oek.am). The candidate of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun – Artsvik Minasyan, does not have a blog on his website; and the Forum is not running (http://www.qaghaqapet.am). And the existing blogs, however, cannot traditionally be considered to be blogs, even due to the way they look. Ruben Muradyan, a blogger for LiveJournal named uzogh, believes that as these elections are not perceived by many as decisive, the blogs won’t have any influence whatsoever. “Interesting developments in the blogs can be caused by “the factor of Armenian Revolutionary Federation”, since many of the bloggers are nationalists and will have certain expectations from the Party,” he adds. . Information security expert, a LiveJournal blogger named kornelij, Samvel Martirosyan, assured ArmeniaNow that elections will be covered by bloggers at the end of May. “At the beginning of spring, when Gagik Beglaryan was appointed Mayor after his bodyguards had beaten a schoolchild, the blogs became more active. The next wave of activization was related to Levon Ter-Petrosyan running for the Mayor’s post, there was also activeness related to whether or not the Heritage Party would take part in the elections. These were the topics for heated discussions in the blogs,” Martirosyan said. He points out that at the moment the elections are pushed to the background by the new developments in the Armenian-Turkish relations, “Gagik Beglaryan’s or Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s names are not even mentioned.” According to Samvel Martirosyan’s estimates, there are 200-300 active blogs in the Armenian blogosphere and he points out that the virtual presidential campaign is more aggressive. “This antagonism that had existed in the political sphere and the society also appeared in the blogosphere, perhaps even more aggressive, as people feel more uninhibited and write more freely, often there was more aggression in the blogosphere,” Martirosyan remembers. Blogs acquired new significance during the 20-day media blackout following the introduction of a state of emergency on March 1, 2008, when they became an alternative to the scarce official information reported and an idiosyncratic source of information. According to Martirosyan, the next step in the development of the blogosphere after it had been an information medium during the media blackout, was the creation of Serzh Sargsyan’s blog under the influence of the political atmosphere. Here the team members on behalf of the president answer the questions asked in the blog (the blog that was a post-election ploy to smooth dissatisfaction, it is not active now, and many questions are still awaiting answers). “That is, blogs developed in several stages, and as of today, many people, even those who don’t have blogs, read them, just as they would read online or print press,” says Martirosyan. Bloggers point out that Armenian blogs are very politicized and apart from elеctions, the main topics for blogs are foreign policy issues, such as Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azeri relations. Many are attracted to those blogs because they are emotional. “From that perspective, they can be very dangerous. They can raise a negative wave that is far from reality and may have bad consequences,” says Martirosyan. Muradyan believes the advantage of blogs is that a blog gives the reader an opportunity to read opinions. “There are people who don’t want to read facts, they don’t want to read what reporters have written, they are looking for a personalized opinion in order to agree or disagree with it.” Muradyan is convinced that not only bloggers read blogs, Armenian blogs have their circle of readers, however, “it is basically impossible to find out who the actual readers are.” A recent public opinion poll conducted by IREX revealed another indicator – almost half of Yerevan residents are going to use the Internet periodically during the forthcoming elections, and more than 63 percent want to read the news online. Leah Kohlenberg, a mass media expert for IREX, who had founded a blog when teaching at GIPA center in Georgia to present the activity of the Georgian opposition, planned to start the coverage of Yerevan municipal assembly elections form May 11 in the same blog. “Primarily, of course, we will be looking for violations on Election Day that we can confirm and report, as well as following up on any issues that come up on Election Day. But in the weeks prior to the elections, we will be posting information on candidate platforms, voting rights, and other stories we think readers might be interested in looking at both before the elections and afterwards. Starting on May 11, we’ll begin posting multi-lingual information on www.caucasusreports.wordpress.com,” Kohlenberg said.
Sara Khojoyan

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