After the 2008 presidential elections in Armenia, a large number of new media outlets burst upon the scene.

We’re talking about the “virtual” scene – the internet. These sites have become the prime source of news and information for a growing number of Armenian citizens that have access to a computer and the web.

The main factor for this attraction is that these “virtual” sites are less prone to censorship and monitoring than the traditional print media.

There are three main tendencies of the internet-based media in Armenia – news distribution, commentary/analysis, and communicative.

There is a serious and healthy competition going on amongst outlets in the first category. This has led to a fall in the overall quality of the news being reported. These information sites are pushing the traditional news agencies out of the market and are forcing them to change their objectives.

There is much more opinion and less objectivity in the second category. These sites are in direct competition with the print media in Armenia. These sites are frequented less than the information sites mentioned above. Internet users are looking for objective information, first and foremost, rather than opinion. But the opinion sites possess a great potential when it comes to shaping public opinion. It all depends on the quality and creativity of the commentators.

If people have something new and interesting to say, others will listen.

The third category basically deals with the so-called blogosphere and other social websites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It’s a field of instantaneous information exchange that is practically impossible to monitor or supervise.

These sites use the entire array of media forms (text, visual, etc) and issues like objectivity and information sources are placed on the back-burner.

In the context of the upcoming May parliamentary elections, the internet resources of Armenia will be playing three main functions – informational, propagandizing and mobilization.

Information Function

The internet affords an unparallel source of diverse and complete information regarding the elections. Even a cursory look at the sites, their news briefs and articles, will give the reader a fairly full picture about the election campaign and its consequences.

Citizens connected to the web can not only follow the process on a minute by minute basis, but has a wide variety of news and information to pick and choose from. With these resources at hand, citizens are able to directly participate in the process itself.

On the other hand, such a constant and quick flow of information also increases the risk that one can be the subject of manipulation.

Propaganda

Like the political forces contesting the elections, the “producers” of information are equally represented in the virtual world of the internet.

The web is increasingly being viewed as an effective tool for campaigning. This is especially true for the opposition given its restricted access to TV, where the ruling regime holds sway.

The opposition Armenian National Congress and the Heritage Party are the most active in using the internet for campaigning out of the nine political parties and organizations contesting the elections.

The Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia Party, the two main government coalition members, view the internet and social websites mostly as venues to quickly respond to their critics in the press and elsewhere.

Mobilization Function

Given that social internet sites played a major role in the organization of the revolutions that have shaken the Arab world of later, their effectiveness as mobilizing tools cannot be underestimated.

Election developments, infractions large and small and major violations very quickly wind up in the internet and spread uncontrollably. This unrestricted dispersion, by itself, without added analysis or commentary, goes a long way in shaping public opinion on the ground regarding the quality of the elections and the quantity of violations.

They are capable of forming a huge wave of resistance when the virtual mechanisms of information and action are intertwined.

Today, in Armenia, a main subject of discussion and debate on the internet is the huge increase in the number of officially registered voters despite the large numbers of Armenians who have left the country.

But there is a lack of internal public debate in Armenia, and this shows up in the social internet websites.

There is more ad hominem attack than rational discussion.

Much of this can be credited to the recent increase of scammers/impostors whose main aim is to neutralize and discredit the mobilization possibilities of the truly active segments of the public.

Put another way, what we are seeing in the run-up to the election in the social sites is more a process of manipulation than initiatives to monitor the electoral process.