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  • Alternative And Traditional Media In Armenia

    ALTERNATIVE AND TRADITIONAL MEDIA IN ARMENIA
    Samvel Martirosyan

    http://noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=5183
    02.12.2010

    Global tendency of alternative and traditional media merging Current
    development of the Internet brought on the one hand to competition
    between the alternative and traditional media and on the other hand to
    supplementing each other. Global experience of the recent years came
    to prove that the so-called civil journalism (which includes bloggers,
    the users of the social networks and other similar civil resources)
    in some situations appears to be more efficient than the traditional
    media1. Moreover, for traditional media social networks become an
    essential source of readers who pass by the links from other users
    of the networks.

    In cases when on-line information on the spot is needed bloggers and
    the users of the social networks turn out to be more efficient than
    traditional media. The civil journalism is also more effective in
    places where the activity of the media is restricted for some reason
    or other. Thus, for example, over the period of confrontation between
    the authorities and opposition in Iran in 2009, the main sources of
    information from the streets where the encounters were taking place
    were the bloggers with their mobile phones2.

    Such a development of communications brings to the integration of all
    the big traditional media with the sources of alternative journalism.

    It is mainly reflected in some elements:

    Mass media use the environment of the alternative journalism as a
    source of information For this purpose the specialists who have
    skills of obtaining efficient and, which is important, reliable
    information from the blogs and social networks are involved Mass
    media open their blogs and boost blogging by their journalists Mass
    media tend to increase their presence in social networks and blogs,
    to become newsmakers in this information environment, to become
    reliable sources of information.

    Armenian traditional media at the crossroads The same processes are
    taking place in the Armenian information field but with some time
    lag. Armenian media today actively try to integrate with the social
    networks and blogs. Almost the entire traditional press now works
    in the social networks in order to attain renown among the users of
    Facebook, Odnoklassniki.ru and etc.

    For the Armenian media, especially printed press, social media become
    the only possibility to keep afloat. Taking into consideration the fact
    that most of the newspapers have a circulation from several hundred to
    several thousand copies, one may forecast that under such a tendency
    the printed press of the social and political orientation will be
    disappearing from the information field due to their uselessness and
    expensiveness (which does not correlate well enough with the scanty
    coverage of the audience and a weak impact on the society).

    At the same time possibility to go on-line and then become a source
    of information is an opportunity for the Armenian mass media to
    â~@~\rebornâ~@~].

    At present moment many Armenian newspapers have almost equal share of
    audience in on-line and printed versions3. Taking into consideration
    the fact that the on-line version of newspaper is much cheaper and
    the potential readership on the Internet is much broader, transitions
    of their activity to the Internet becomes more and more topical for
    the traditional mass media.

    Armenia in social networks The Armenia Internet is now in the phase
    of bursting growth.

    Competition between mobile operators and internet connection providers
    caused an abrupt reduction of prices in the sector. In this regard
    the number of the Internet users is growing much faster than in 2008.

    Correspondingly, the growth of the number of the social networksâ~@~Y
    users is also growing.

    If we consider the situation with traffic of the Armenian information
    portals as compared with the traffic of the social networks and
    blogs the situations is quite an interesting. All the Armenian news
    resources registered on Circle.am rating system4 (these are almost
    all the main actors â~@~S about 150 sites) have about 170 thousand
    visitors per day5. And only 43% of visitors are from Armenia.

    Thus, according to the data of Ditord.com there are 450 thousand
    registered users of Odnoklassniki.ru social network in Armenia6.

    Odnoklassniki still remains the most popular social network in
    Armenia. There are about 200 thousand users from Armenia registered
    in VKonakte,Ru7.

    At the same time the most actively developing network in Armenia
    today is Facebook â~@~S the biggest global social network. Here the
    number of the users from Armenia is about 80 thousand. And the growth
    of the number of the users is approximately 10-15% per month.

    If in the quantitative aspect Facebook still drops behind Odnoklassniki
    seriously, in the aspect of activity quite an opposite situation
    can be observed, According to the data of alexa.com, which carries
    out monitoring of the Internet users all over the world, at the end
    of August Facebook outstripped Odnoklassniki in the aspect of the
    generated traffic in Armenia (according to the statistics Facebook
    takes second place after Google, and Odnoklassniki is on the third
    place)8.

    Facebook has turned into a tool of the civil activity for the socially
    active part of the population. Such civil initiatives as the movement
    against the demolition of the open-air hall of â~@~\Moscowâ~@~]
    cinema and the movement against opening of the foreign language
    schools were initiated through Facebook and blogosphere. The group
    which struggles against destruction of green zones in Yerevan also
    coordinates its activity through Facebook. Those groups are numerous
    and they are a source of serious civil activity which opinion is taken
    into consideration by both government and political powers in Armenia:

    SAVE Cinema Moscow Open-Air Hall â~@~S 6600 registered members9
    Õ~DÕ¥Õ~[Õ¶Ö~D Õ¥Õ¶Ö~D Õ¡ÕµÕ½ Ö~DÕ¡Õ²Õ¡Ö~DÕ« Õ¿Õ¥Ö~@Õ¨ (We are the
    masters of our city) â~@~S 3670 registered members10 Õ~DÕ¥Õ¶Ö~D
    Õ¤Õ¥Õ~[Õ´ Õ¥Õ¶Ö~D Ö~EÕ¿Õ¡Ö~@Õ¡Õ¬Õ¥Õ¦Õ¸Ö~B Õ¤ÕºÖ~@Õ¸Ö~AÕ¶Õ¥Ö~@Õ«
    Õ¾Õ¥Ö~@Õ¡Õ¢Õ¡Ö~AÕ´Õ¡Õ¶Õ¨ (We are against re-opening of foreign language
    schools in Armenia) â~@~S 3250 registered members11 To compare, the
    audience of such groups can be compared with the Armenian audience
    of main Armenian on-line news resources.

    Correspondingly, informational value of such groups on definite issues
    sometimes becomes qualitatively higher than the one of the traditional
    mass media. At the same time it becomes important for the press to
    be presented in such groups as a source of information which allows
    increasing audience.

    1See: «УÐ~RÐ~UÐ~[Ð~XЧÐ~UÐ~]Ð~XÐ~U РÐ~^Ð~[Ð~X
    СÐ~^ЦÐ~XÐ~PÐ~[ЬÐ~]ЫХ СÐ~UТÐ~UÐ~Y
    Ð~R Ð~XÐ~]ФÐ~^РÐ~\Ð~PЦÐ~XÐ~^Ð~]Ð~]Ð~^Ð~\
    Ð~_Ð~^Ð~[Ð~U», Самвел Ð~\аÑ~@Ñ~BиÑ~@оÑ~AÑ~Oн,
    http://noravank.am/rus/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=4623

    2See: «Ð~XРÐ~PÐ~] â~@~S Ð~XСÐ~_Ð~^Ð~[ЬÐ~WÐ~^Ð~RÐ~PÐ~]Ð~XÐ~U
    Ð~PÐ~[ЬТÐ~UРÐ~]Ð~PТÐ~XÐ~RÐ~]ЫХ
    Ð~ZÐ~^Ð~\Ð~\УÐ~]Ð~XÐ~ZÐ~PЦÐ~XÐ~Y»,
    Самвел Ð~\аÑ~@Ñ~BиÑ~@оÑ~AÑ~Oн,
    http://noravank.am/rus/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=2524

    3See: Ð~_оÑ~AеÑ~IаемоÑ~AÑ~BÑ~L
    оÑ~AновнÑ~KÑ~E аÑ~@мÑ~OнÑ~AкиÑ~E СÐ~\Ð~X
    в Ñ~@ейÑ~Bинговой Ñ~AиÑ~AÑ~Bеме Circle -
    http://www.circle.am/?cat=news&for=today&by=visits

    4http://www.circle.am/?go=catinfo&cat=news

    5Visiting of the site by the same user in 30 minutes is considered
    as a new visit.

    6http://ditord.com/2010/08/31/facebook-overtakes-odnoklassniki-as-armenias-top-social-network

    7http://vkontakte.ru/ads.php?act=union_create_ad

    8http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/AM

    9http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=343138923439

    10http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=119537174725392

    11http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112426852127161

    "Globus National Security", issue 6
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another materials of author

    CYBER TROOPS: NECESSITY DICTATED BY TIME [06.09.2010] SUPERFLUIDITY
    OF INFORMATION IN SOCIAL NETWORKS[01.06.2010] INCREASING OF THE ROLE
    OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THE MEDIA FIELD[19.04.2010] PROPAGANDA
    MACHINERY OF AZERBAIJAN: NEW TENDENCIES [08.02.2010] INFORMATIONAL
    CONTEXT OF THE POSSIBLE OPENING OF THE TURKSIH BORDER[21.12.2009]




    From: A. Papazian
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