EITHER WATCH OR COMPLAIN?: LOW-QUALITY SOUP OPERAS ON ARMENIAN TV CONTINUE TO DRAW CRITICISM
By Siranuysh Gevorgyan
ArmeniaNow
26.10.11 | 12:14
Criticism over TV production, particularly soap operas, continues
in Armenia, however, the TV content undergoes no change. During
the recent years a number of artists, psychologists, specialists in
conflictology, and even lawmakers have touched upon the content of
soap operas (which have huge TV audience and provide TV channels with
substantial advertisement profits), demanding to improve their content
in order not to harm people’s, especially young people’s psychology.
In response to this demand, soap opera producers say that they reflect
the real life and do not intend to make heroes out of criminals,
but instead they try to bring to light all negative phenomena and
morals and manners of public life.
According to the weekly monitoring by the Telemediacontrol Company,
soap operas (‘Anna’, ‘School of Angels’, ‘On the Other Side of the
Edge’, ‘Hard Life’, ‘Dreams’, ‘Full Moon’, etc.) dominate on the list
of the most watched TV programs. Another research shows soap operas
are watched by half of Armenia’s population.
A few months ago, the club of young specialists in conflictology
voiced its concerns that the scenes of too much misfortune and
sufferings in the lives of soap opera characters (who are either
representatives of the criminal world or people having hard life)
create a wrong impression about life among TV audience. Specialists
in conflictology are also worried that soap operas are full of scenes
with sexual, physical and psychological violence.
“Such scenarios create an undesirable soap opera identity among TV
watchers, making them repeat the behavior presented in soap operas
in real life. The long-lasting ‘development’ of people through soap
operas creates disabled psychology. Soap operas negatively influence
especially the minors, who are more vulnerable in terms of perceiving
what they see as a reality. Minors perceive soap opera characters as
role models, ‘successfully’ copying their behavior, manner of speech,
vocabulary, which mainly tortures the mother tongue,” say specialists
in conflictology, addressing to the National Commission on Television
and Radio (NCTR), as well as to the Armenian Public Television,
Armenia and Shant TV companies, which produce soap operas.
Member of the club, specialist in conflictology Astghik Khachatryan
tells ArmeniaNow that nothing has been changed so far.
“We have received no response from soap opera producing TV companies,
the situation has not been changed anyhow, and the scenes of violence
have even increased, because soap operas in general have increased,”
says Khachatryan.
Last year a nine-year-old boy, resident of a village in the northern
Tavush province, beat the dog of his co-villager to death and then
called its owner, and changing his voice demanded one million drams,
otherwise he threatened to do the same with all members of their
family. The boy later told the police that he had acted as one of
the hidden characters in a soap opera.
Expert in IT security Vahram Mirakyan, who is the author of the
‘Formation of Aggressive Social Positions in Mass Media’ research
work, told ArmeniaNow that television being an informal educational
institution, because of its aggressive content has a dysfunctional
influence upon the audience.
“The Armenian antisocial, aggressive films and TV programs have even
stronger influence upon the audience, because the factor of influence
and the target have common culture, language and social reality,”
Mirakyan says.
Mirakyan in his research studied three soap operas – ‘Anna 2’,
‘Return 2’, ‘Successors’ (the last two are already finished, however,
according to Mirakyan, the soap operas, which replace them do not
differ from them) – within a month and came to the conclusion that
episodes full of aggression and depression essentially prevail over
episodes, which are free from aggression and are neutral.
As a result, according to Mirakyan, soap operas with such content and
trend may bring about language torture, change in language-thinking,
when especially schoolchildren start speaking in a special criminal
sub-cultural dialect. Besides, the accepted model of family is being
mutilated, “because there is general aggression in male-female,
child-parent, male-male relations,” Mirakyan explains.
“A soap opera about cops is shown in Armenia, where, nevertheless, the
criminal world is presented, those people are in the foreground. Even
if a criminal is punished in the end, it is not important, the
important thing is that throughout the whole soap opera that character
serves as a sample of propaganda,” Mirakyan says, adding that the
problem is not settled in the West either, however, there at least in
police soap operas the image of a police officer is in the foreground,
and a criminal is presented less.
In the research work Mirakyan also comes to the conclusion that the
soap operas that he has examined have a potential of creating social
tension and stressful situations among the TV audience through
substantial aggressive scenes, “which may meet the interests of
Armenia’s information sector rivals.”