Final Report on Monitoring of Armenian Online Media Coverage of May 6, 2012 Elections to RA National Assembly conducted by the Journalists for the Future NGO is possible to download HERE.
This monitoring is conducted by the Journalists for the Future NGO (JFF) with the financial support of the Open Society Foundations-Armenia (OSF-Armenia).
The aim of the research is to study Armenian online media coverage concerning parliamentary elections during the 3 months of pre-election period and 2 weeks after the elections, i.e. February 6 – May 20, 2012 (105 days).
There has been no research of online media conducted in Armenia during electoral processes. The need of such monitoring has risen during the recent 3-4 years with the increase of Internet users and the decrease of prices. The number of news-making websites increased too.
Final Report on Monitoring of Armenian Online Media Coverage of May 6, 2012 Elections to RA National Assembly conducted by the Journalists for the Future NGO is possible to download HERE.
This monitoring is conducted by the Journalists for the Future NGO (JFF) with the financial support of the Open Society Foundations-Armenia (OSF-Armenia).
The aim of the research is to study Armenian online media coverage concerning parliamentary elections during the 3 months of pre-election period and 2 weeks after the elections, i.e. February 6 – May 20, 2012 (105 days).
There has been no research of online media conducted in Armenia during electoral processes. The need of such monitoring has risen during the recent 3-4 years with the increase of Internet users and the decrease of prices. The number of news-making websites increased too.
In 2007, during the Parliamentary elections there were less than 10 Armenian active online media outlets. Today, there are 224 websites registered only in the “News and Media” section of Circle.am rating system. The leading 50 websites have 1.000-150.000 visitors per day (Not all news websites are registered in this system. e.g. Azatutyun.am and PanArmenian.Net).
Expansion of social networks in Armenia also conduced to increasing the number of online media visitors. Especially in Facebook, almost all the Armenian websites have their corresponding page where they share the links of all articles from their website. For example, the News.am Facebook page has more than 50.000 «likes».
Despite the fact that TV remains the most required media in Armenia, online media outlets are already able to affect the news forming of traditional media with the variety and efficiency of their information.
The current research will allow understanding the impartiality of online media in covering such an important social-political event in Armenia as parliamentary elections.
Besides the number and nature of references, their types of sources, number, genres and media content have been monitored too.
Current report presents the results of monitoring for it’s full length, as well as by following periods:
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Pre Official campaign – 62 days (February 6 – April 7)
- Pre-Elections Period/Official campaign – 27 days (April 8 – May 10)
- Post-Elections period – 16 days (May 5 – May 20)
Notes: the Silence Day (May 5) and the Election Day (May 6) are presented independently
The monitoring has been conducted over 10 Armenian online media outlets selected through data of the Circle.am rating system and the survey among media experts:
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1in.am
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7or.am
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A1plus.am
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Azatutyun.am (RFE/RL service in Armenia)
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Civilnet.tv (.am)
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Lragir.am
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News.am
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Tert.am
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Panarmenian.net
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Panorama.am
All the references concerning 9 parties/bloc participating in the elections by proportional electoral system and/or the first three persons in the proportional list of each party found in above-mentioned websites’ «News», «Politics», «Video» categories were registered and studied. If the livestreams of websites were recorded and published in the monitored categories of their websites, they were monitored too.
Source: Journalists for the Future
email.: [email protected]