Social platforms ‘devalued’ propaganda in Gyumri — Artak Avetisyan

On March 30, extraordinary elections to the City Council will be held in Gyumri. Alpha News spoke with independent expert Artak Avetisyan on this topic.

“The excitement around the elections in Gyumri is mainly observed on social media and in Yerevan, and those who react to it are mostly not even Gyumri residents. In fact, both local and national elections in Gyumri have always been accompanied by noise and a number of incidents. If 10 years ago there were approximately 100 electronic media, now there are 10 times more, and each considers it their duty to address this topic. It collects quite a lot of likes, and everyone wants to address it. Therefore, it seems that there is a lot of excitement there. In fact, the same thing is happening as in previous cases,” Avetisyan noted.

According to the expert, everyone is trying to take part in the elections by spending as few resources as possible and trying to understand what results can be achieved with minimal financial costs.

“There are 9 parties and blocs nominated for the elections, and I think that all of them will participate and be included in the respective list. At the moment, a standard situation has developed, the approaches are the same, even in terms of propaganda and technology. I thought that some innovations would be introduced that would differ from the previous ones, but so far I have not noticed anything like that. Everyone is trying to participate, spending as few resources as possible, and trying to understand what results can be achieved with minimal financial costs. A standard campaign is being conducted, and in this regard, social platforms have ‘devalued’ propaganda. If earlier the main platform for propaganda was television, which requires quite expensive resources, now anyone can turn on their smartphone, go live and say whatever they want,” Avetisyan concluded.