YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK EMERGING AS REFORM TOOLS IN YEREVAN
by Marianna Grigoryan
EurasiaNet
Nov 17 2010
NY
An estimated 700-percent increase in the number of Armenian Internet
users since 2009 is changing the way Armenians lobby for social change
and protest perceived abuses of power, some media observers say.
Others contend, however, that the YouTube and Facebook revolution
remains in its infancy, with state-controlled television still
dominating the public discourse.
The effects of Armenia’s Internet usage explosion have already been
seen this year: several cell-phone videos posted on YouTube prompted
unprecedented investigations into physical abuse of soldiers within
the army and of teachers’ use of violence against students in public
schools.
“The Internet’s influence is growing larger with the increase in
the number of Internet users,” commented Gegham Vardanian, an online
producer at Internews, a media support non-governmental organization.
Internet World Stats, a portal for international Internet access
statistics, claims that Armenia’s number of Internet users has
increased by 700 percent since 2009. Some 47.1 percent of Armenia’s
population of almost 3 million is now online, according to the Public
Services Regulatory Commission. By comparison, just 6.4 percent of
Armenia’s 2009 population was estimated to have Internet access.
Armenia currently holds the highest Internet access rate in the South
Caucasus, just ahead of Azerbaijan at 44.4 percent of the population,
and far outpacing Georgia’s 28.3 percent of the population.
Lower-priced Internet service packages offered by Armenia’s
three main cell phone companies (Vivacell-MTS, Armentel-Beeline
and Orange Armenia) appear to be encouraging growth. Prices for
126 kilobytes/second and 256 kilobytes/second now range on average
between 6,000 and 9,000 drams (about $16.50 – $25) per month – a
noticeable decrease from a few years ago when Internet access was
not widely affordable.
One of the more active non-governmental organizations in online media
development in Armenia, the Open Society Foundation-Armenia, has
underwritten a project to try and enable cell phones to display and
use Armenian-language fonts. Conceivably, the option could accelerate
the spread of cell-phone-based Internet usage. [The Open Society
Foundation-Armenia is part of the Open Society Foundations network.
EurasiaNet.org operates under the auspices of the Open Society
Institute, a separate part of the foundations network.]
If Internet usage rates are even “maintained, we’ll have a situation
when people sitting in front of their PCs at home are able to
initiate huge changes in the country,” predicted Edgar Arakelian,
who oversees a 3,300-member-strong Facebook campaign against opening
foreign-language schools.
Two sets of YouTube videos have already illustrated the potential
for using the Internet to promote reforms.
In September, a cell-phone video entitled “The Real Face of the Army”
that showed a drunken army officer pulling soldiers’ ears, hitting them
in the face and pouring water on their heads kicked off a series of
video postings that documented the physical abuse of Armenian soldiers.
Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian at first declared that he did not
believe that such an incident could happen in the Armenian army.
Within a few days, however, as popular outrage at the videos increased,
a criminal case was filed against the offending officer.
Soon afterwards, two videos appeared on YouTube, shot by students,
showing Yerevan public school teachers hitting and yelling at
students. Within several hours of the videos’ publication, the
teachers in question had resigned. The schools’ principals received
official reprimands.
Vardanian, the Internews producer, said the incidents show that
reform-minded citizens are discovering the power of the Internet to
mobilize support for struggles against individuals and institutions
that traditionally have proven resistant to change. “The latest
developments create the impression that the Internet fight is more
effective in terms of establishment of civil society and protection
of rights than any other options,” commented artist Diana Galstian.
The local head of one international media advocacy organization
notes that the social network revolution is not just the domain
of disgruntled citizens. After the bloody crackdown on opposition
protests against the 2008 presidential election results, the government
took note of the change as well, commented Media Diversity Institute
Director Arthur Papian.
With media restrictions in place post-crackdown, “it became apparent
for everybody that social networks and video websites can basically
replace” traditional media, Papian said. “So, the state, as well
as the mass media understood the power of social media, which have
appeared now in the focus of their attention.”
Civil society activist Izabella Sargsian, a blogger for more than a
decade, believes that Armenia is no different from other countries
that have turned to social networks like YouTube and Facebook as a
way to overcome problems with freedom of speech. “Social networks
have a great role, but we cannot say that the Internet can compete
with TV in terms of influence,” Sargsian said.
Political PR consultant Armen Badalian believes that the uproar
created by the YouTube videos had less to do with ordinary Armenians’
Internet usage and more to do with traditional media taking advantage
of these online tools. “It’s not the influence of the Internet that
is great; rather the [mainstream] media makes this influence large,”
said Badalian, in reference to traditional broadcast media.
By themselves, such videos do not prove conclusively that the Internet
is providing a significant boost to civil society development in
Armenia, commented blogger Sargsian. While the YouTube videos are
“indeed positive,” she said, “it’s not a total victory.”
Editor’s note: Marianna Grigoryan is the founder and editor-in-chief
of MediaLab.am, a news site financed by the Open Society
Foundation-Armenia.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62398