IREX MAKES POSITIVE ESTIMATES FOR MEDIA SUSTAINABILITY IN ARMENIA
Tert.am
10.08.11
In its 2011 Media Sustainability report for Europe and Eurasia,
the International Research Exchange Board (IREX) has given positive
estimates to Armenia’s media sector.
The authors of the document focus on three major developments which
they say significantly impacted the country’s media sector in 2010.
They particularly refer to the decriminalization of defamation, PM
Tigran Sargsyan’s move to launch a Livejournal blog in late 2009 and
the increased number and influence of online periodicals, citizen
journalists, and social networking platform.
They say the overall score for Armenia showed solid improvement,
driven by increases in most of the objectives.
With 2.09 scores Armenia appeared to have the best results in the list
of the countries concerned. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, with 0.35 and
0.59 scores, respectively, were considered the worst countries in terms
of ensuring media freedoms. Georgia had significantly lower scores
despite the progress that followed colored revolutions in the country.
Commenting on the situation in Georgia, Anahit Mirzoyants, the
manager of the Intermedia project, said that though the country is
capable of guaranteeing the freedom of media, such guarantees are
very often violated by the authorities which resort to different
methods to ensure that they are capable of controlling the content
of information released.
The full report is available here.