Lragir, Armenia
Feb 14 2008
INTERIM REPORT ON MONITORING THE COVERAGE OF PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTIONS-2008 BY BROADCAST MEDIA OF ARMENIA
The coverage of presidential elections-2008 by 8 broadcast media of
Armenia is monitored by Yerevan Press Club with the participation of
`TEAM’ Research Center and with the financial assistance of the Open
Society Institute. The study covers the period of pre-election
promotion, January 21 – February 17, 2008.
THIS INTERIM REPORT includes the period of January 31 – February 9,
2008. As compared to the previous ten days (January 21-30, 2008),
during this study period the volume of editorial coverage of the
election campaign has somewhat increased. This, however, occurred due
to the coverage of the RA presidency candidates, distinctly enjoying
the greatest media attention: these are the RA First President Levon
Ter-Petrosian, the RA Prime Minister, candidate of the Republican
Party of Armenia Serge Sargsian, candidate of `Orinats Yerkir’ party
Artur Baghdasarian, candidate of Popular Party Tigran Karapetian,
candidate of `Dashnaktsutiun’ party Vahan Hovhannesian, candidate of
`National Unity’ party Artashes Geghamian and the candidate of
National Democratic Union Vazgen Manukian. Self-nominated Arman
Melikian and the candidate of `National Accord’ party Aram
Harutiunian are somewhat behind the leading seven. It should be
noted, however, that Tigran Karapetian, following the tradition,
received most of his coverage on `ALM’ TV channel that he owns, and
if he had received as much attention on `his own’ air, as he did in
average on seven other channels studied, he would have been rated the
8th, between Arman Melikiàn and Aram Harutiunian.
The gap between the candidates who received the most and the least
aggregate (on all 8 media studied) coverage have somewhat increased,
too: 37,016 sec. for Levon Ter-Petrosian and 8,725 sec. for Aram
Harutiunian (the proportion here is more than 4 to 1, while during
the previous decade the proportion between the most and the least
covered candidates made less than 2.5 to 1).
The RA First President received most of the coverage on 8 channels
studied during the 10 days presented in this report. He is followed
by Serge Sargsian – 32,786 sec. (of these 9,451 sec. were the
coverage of his activities as a Prime Minister). If the coverage of
the official activities is excluded from the total airtime allocated
to the candidates, in terms of aggregate airtime Serge Sargsian would
fall behind three more candidates – Artur Baghdasarian (29,963 sec.),
Tigran Karapetian (25,706 sec.) and Vahan Hovhannesian (25,601 sec.).
AT THE SAME TIME Levon Ter-Petrosian remains the undisputed leader in
terms of connotational references (146), or, more specifically, in
terms of negative references (143 versus 3 positive ones). The
connotation references to Serge Sargsian are frequent, too (83
positive and 24 negative). These two candidates, similarly to all the
previous monitoring stages (the monitoring of 8 broadcast media was
administered also ahead of the election campaign, in October-December
2007), received polarized coverage. Of the remaining candidates the
positive balance of connotational references is observed for Tigran
Karapetian (8-0) and Vahan Hovhannesian (14-0), the negative one –
for Artur Baghdasarian (11 positive and 16 negative) and Vazgen
Manukian (4-8), neutral or almost neutral – for Artashes Geghamian
(3-4), Arman Melikian (0-1) and Aram Harutiunian (0-0). At the same
time all the positive references to Tigran Karapetian were recorded
by the monitoring group on the air of `ALM’, and 11 out of 14
positive references of Vahan Hovhannesian – on the air of
`Yerkir-Media’. In other words, a positive balance is held only by
the candidates of `party of power’ and/or owning (enjoying support)
one of the leading TV companies. This circumstance signifies that the
problem of unequal conditions in the editorial coverage of election
campaigns remains quite urgent in Armenia.
TO A GREATER EXTENT the existing polarity of coverage of the two
candidates (Serge Sargsian and Levon Ter-Petrosian) was displayed on
`Kenton’ TV channel. Sargsian here was mentioned 19 times in a
positive and never in a negative context, and Ter-Petrosian,
respectively, 0 and 44 times. 9 of the positive references to the
Prime Minister and 30 of the negative references to the First
President were made in `What Newspapers Write About’ TV program. The
picture of this press review practically repeated that of the
previous 10 days. As it is noted in numerous researches of the
Armenian media market, most print media in Armenia have open and
diverse (often radical) political stance. In particular, in the
course of the current election campaign the newspaper stances diverge
dramatically, primarily as concerns the candidacies of the Prime
Minister and the First President. The indicator of references to
Sargsian and Ter-Petrosian, as quoted above, proves that when
addressing the press coverage of these two politicians, the authors
of `What Newspaper Write About’ program display extreme bias.
The First Channel of the Public Television of Armenia, similarly to
the previous ten days, displayed the balance required by law only in
distribution of the airtime, but not in the nature of candidate
coverage (this concerns again Serge Sargsian and Levon
Ter-Petrosian). During the 20 days of pre-election promotion studied
the Prime Minister was referred to in positive context 32 times and
in negative context – 3 times. The First President has 27 negative
references and none – positive. The contrast on Public Radio of
Armenia is a little milder: here Sargsian’s balance of connotational
references for 20 days is 14-0, while that of Ter-Petrosian is 0-16.
In October-December 2007 the Public Radio was, on the contrary, more
unbalanced. The special approach to the coverage of these two
politicians on the Public Radio stands out also against the fact that
the remaining candidates throughout the 20 days of pre-election
promotion were mentioned solely in neutral context. On the First
Channel of the Public Television, too, seven other candidates
received few connotational references: throughout the ten days
(January 31 – February 9, 2008) only 3% of the total number of their
references had connotational coloring. For Ter-Petrosian this figure
made 28%, and for Sargsian – 18.8%. The figures quoted show that the
journalists of the Public TV and Radio Company have the skills of
impartial reporting, but do not always use them.
Similarly to the previous monitoring stages, this trend of coverage
of Serge Sargsian and Levon Ter-Petrosian that has probably become
the main specialty of the current election campaign, was displayed in
the work of all broadcast media studied, except for `Yerkir Media’,
during the past ten days, too. On this TV channel both the Prime
Minister and the First President have a negative balance of
connotational references for the 10 days.
During the pre-election promotion another similarity in the news
policy of the seven TV channels studied has been recorded: they all
air reports about the pre-election events of Serge Sargsian one day
after they had been held, while the rallies of the other candidates
are covered, as a rule, on the same day. In this case, too, the
coverage of the election campaign by `Yerkir Media’ TV channel is
somewhat out of the trend: here the events of Sargsian appear on the
air quite irregularly, but are still broadcast the next day. Hence,
the monitoring group is induced to reiterate its hypothesis about a
coordinated (or directed) policy of covering election campaigns in
Armenia by most of the leading broadcast media.
The Public Radio of Armenia (35,178 sec.) and `Kentron’ (30,981
sec.), similarly to the preceding decade, paid the most attention to
the election-related subjects. These are followed by `ALM’ (30,276
sec.), `Yerkir Media’ (26,802 sec.) and the Second Armenian TV
Channel (26,581 sec.). The least attention to the elections was paid
by `Shant’ (21,310 sec.) and `Armenia’ (20,113 sec.) TV channels.
SIMILARLY TO THE PREVIOUS TEN DAYS, the involvement of presidency
candidates (and the representatives of their election headquarters)
in the discussion programs of the media studied remained low. Despite
the heat of the pre-election promotion, on eight channels during the
ten days candidates or their representatives took part in such
programs only 28 times, less than on January 21-30, 2008 (36 times).
Here it should be noted that the monitoring group did not take into
account the interviews of the candidates on the air of Public Radio
as these were broadcast before 17.00, i.e., the time when the
editorial coverage was not studied. As it follows from discussions of
this issue with media representatives, the reason for this is not so
much the reluctance of broadcasters to invite the candidates, but
rather the unreadiness of some politicians to engage in public
dialogue.
The rarest participants of `guest in studio’ programs were Serge
Sargsian (2 times in 20 days after the launch of the pre-election
promotion) and Levon Ter-Petrosian (3 times) – or, rather, in all
these cases, these were not they themselves, but their
representatives. The greatest openness during the same period was
displayed by Tigran Karapetian (11 programs, 5 of them being on `ALM’
TV channel), Vahan Hovhannesian and Vazgen Manukian (9 each), Arman
Melikian, Artur Baghdasarian and Artashes Geghamian (8 each), Aram
Harutiunian (6). Similarly to the previous stages of monitoring, the
broadcast media were little interested in the opinion of those
Armenian NGOs, who observe various aspects of electoral process.
AS CONCERNS the pre-election promotional materials (political
advertising), the monitoring gives no ground to speak about any
obstruction for them on the channels studied. All candidates use the
free air they are entitled to the First Channel of the Public
Television. By the results of the 20 days studied, the leader for the
aggregate (on all 8 channels) volume of promotional materials is
Vahan Hovhannesian (30,052 paid and free seconds), followed by Artur
Baghdasarian (18,129 sec.) and Levon Ter-Petrosian (18,075 sec.).
Serge Sargsian was only the fourth by this indicator (16,011 sec.).
Three of the candidates listed (except Artur Baghdasarian) reduced
the number of promotional materials during January 31 – February 9 as
compared to the previous ten days (January 21-30).
The paid air of the First Channel of the Public Television was the
most attractive for the candidates during the second decade, too. It
is followed by `Armenia’, `ALM’, `Shant’, Second Armenian TV Channel,
`Yerkir Media’, `Kentron’. The least attractive of all was the air of
the Public Radio.
JANUARY 31, 2007 – FEBRUARY 9, 2008