A study of Armenian political parties and their mass media activities

Abstract

The current study aims at looking at the mass media activities of Armenian political parties. Mass media activities not related to elections are analyzed. How the management of these activities is organized, what kinds of resources are used and what are the various goals of those activities are discussed. Through interviewing media managers of the main political parties the study tries to find out the current stage of affairs. Through interviews with the officials of ten of Armenia’s most important political parties, their self-assessments of the results of media activities is identified. As the findings show Armenian political parties’ media experts are doing a poor job. They are not professionals in media relations and they have no means of self-education because of the lack of appropriate Armenian literature and because of lack of concern with media activities by high level party officials. The communist past of the country also carries some burden of responsibility for the current situation of media affairs of Armenian political parties. People who are in charge of media affairs in political parties do not understand the power of mass media to set public agendas and to transform voter preferences into public policy. Consequently, they cannot use mass media in the best interest of their parties. The media themselves are politicized. This further complicates the matter, making it more difficult access mass media for different political parties who have non-professionals in charge of media affairs. Not all political parties have equal access to the public media financed from the state budget. Almost all political parties mention in their party goals the achievement of democratic values in Armenia. However, with the current limited understanding of the role of mass media in a democratic system it seems that we as a country have a long way to go before the establishment of democratic systems of governance and public opinion formation and participation in Armenia.