After a 20-day state of emergency was declared in Armenia when clashes between security services and supporters of the former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, broke out on the streets of the capital following the disputed 19 February presidential election, access to the media has been severely restricted. According to presidential decree, local media outlets can now only publish official news and political propaganda is banned.

[…]

Nevertheless, pro-Ter-Petrossian activists outside of the country have seized upon the opportunity to instead use blogs to disseminate information during what is to all intents and purposes a media blackout in the country. Interestingly, one such blogger, Artmika at Unzipped, likens it to the old Soviet practice of “samizdat.”

Samizdat (Russian: самиздат) was the clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature or other media in Soviet-bloc countries. Copies were made a few at a time, and those who received a copy would be expected to make more copies. This was often done by handwriting or typing.

This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.

Vladimir Bukovsky defined it as follows: “I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish it, distribute it, and [may] get imprisoned for it.”

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

Although Internet penetration in Armenia is quite low compared to the West, more and more domain names are being registered and many opposition media outlets now depend on an online presence to get their message out. In recent years international donors have even funded government web sites in the hope of increasing transparency and promoting the rule of law.

Last year’s parliamentary election was also quite notable in that many political parties started to use the Internet to appeal to voters and, as The Armenian Observer notes, that tendency looks set to continue for next month’s presidential election in Armenia.

Vigorous politicisation of the Armenian section of Internet is observed as the February 19 Presidential elections draw near. A number of official websites endorsing different candidates have been launched. Already there are websites for Levon Ter-Petrossian, Vazgen Manukyan, Vahan Hovhannisyan and Artur Baghdasaryan. Sections related to the elections have appeared in the websites of Republican Party of Armenia, Prosperous Armenia/ Bargavach Hayastan and United Liberal National Party/MIAK parties.

Passport and invitations department at RA police has presented the list of Armenian voters based on polling stations to the Central Electoral Commission, which has been placed in the Central Electoral Commission’s website, and as was the case with the previous elections, every Internet connected voter may check their names in the list and find out which polling station they will be voting, and where that particular station is located. By the way, 2 311 917 voters were registered this time, which is 5 983 less then the previous - May 12, 2007 Parliamentary elections.

A range of information websites dedicated to the upcoming elections have been launched, including the http://elections.a1plus.am/ of A1plus, http://www.echannel.am - by Internews Armenia and http://www.elections2008.am - by MediaMax News Agency.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Mention two presidential election campaign web sites and before you know it, you discover a third. Orinats Yerkir’s Artur Baghdasarian also has one. Like Ter Petrosian’s, the site is multi-lingual in Armenian, Russian and English although pretty much still under construction.

Following the establishment of an official Levon Ter Petrosian Campaign Site for next month’s presidential election in Armenia, another candidate — the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun’s Vahan Hovannisian — now has one too. It’s only available in Armenian and is not quite as slick as Ter Petrosian’s which is available in three languages.

In the interest of transparency given the tendency for many sites to inflate the number of readers, with some confusing hits and page views with the number of actual accesses, Google Analytics reports the following in terms of statistics for this blog in 2007:

Visitors:	94,404
Absolute Unique Visitors:	58,742
Page views	176,175

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With 2008 less than a day away at time of writing, it seems only appropriate to take a look back at the blogging highlights in the Caucasus for 2007. Certainly, although blogging is still largely underdeveloped, the year has seen some major highlights, especially with regards to stories that also made headlines worldwide. In the past this has not been the case, but the signs for Armenian and Georgian blogging look very promising indeed, and not least because the first two months of 2008 will see crucial presidential elections take place in both republics.

Although the same might be true for Azerbaijan as its presidential election scheduled for late next year looms closer, the elections seem to have encouraged citizens, activists and journalists to blog. Other high profile events also seem to have pushed more bloggers to engage in online discussion on key issues, especially in the arguably more evolved Armenian blogging scene. Interestingly, however, the first major blogging event of the year came on 19 January 2007 when journalist and editor, Hrant Dink, was murdered in Istanbul, Turkey.

Although Dink was a Turkish citizen and resident in Armenia’s neighbor to the West, he was also an ethnic Armenian and prolific in his calls for reconciliation between Armenians and Turks. His views might have alienated himself from the larger Armenian Diaspora who consider that Genocide Recognition is the most important issue facing Armenians today, but the point was that his assassination shocked the world, including many Turks in Turkey itself as well as those with no links to Armenian circles at all.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

LVB.net has an interesting post on the impact of blogging on society and politics based on a moderated working group on the same subject which was part of the European Bloggers (Un)Conference. Interestingly, E-Channel’s Gegham Vardanyan and TOL Georgia’s Irakli Jibladze were present at the event and some points are worth republishing here.

1. In the UK, an Ipsos Mori poll found that only 16% of people trust journalists. It’s not as much because of what they write, but also because what they don’t write. While public broadcasters depend from politics for funding, commercial media depend from advertizing and profits. Because of their individual perspective, bloggers are seen as more independent and honest. Still, bloggers can learn some things from professional journalists in fields like writing style, clarity and efficiency.

2. Does this mean that bloggers have to be objective? Not at all. The new age is an age of opinion, not of facts. In order to be credible, honesty is more important than neutrality or objectivity.

3. Political campaigns are already changing into a more participatory way as a result of web 2.0 and blogs. However, this effect is still superficial and its impact on political programs is still low. Especially in the US we see that web 2.0 are effective for fundraising. But blogging and web 2.0 are not just about politics, it’s about society. They are transforming society by giving a voice to individuals and groups. Ideas are now also flowing from the bottom to the top instead of exclusively top down.

4. In countries without free media, bloggers usually get in trouble only when they start to have a real impact. But for these bloggers it is difficult to get a real impact, as their blogs are not picked up by the mainstream media. Sometimes the impact can be indirect, through world opinion and foreign media. Check out globalvoicesonline.org for news about censorship and freedom of expression.

5. How can bloggers measure their impact? Counters and statistics only tell one part of the story. It’s not the quantity that counts, but the quality of your readership. A few opinion makers as readers can have a greater impact than thousands of other readers. Surveys can be useful to discover who is reading your blog.

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In addition to acting as the Caucasus Editor for Global Voices Online, some exciting news, I hope. I’ve been asked to act as the Armenia coordinator/contact person for a new online media project set up by France 24.

The Observers is a France 24 site that aims to:

Enrich our coverage of international current affairs with eyewitness accounts from ‘observers’- that’s to say those people who are at the heart of events. Videos, texts, photos- none of the content is produced by professional journalists- but everything is selected, verified, translated and explained by our team.

Give you the opportunity to discuss current affairs with ‘observers’ chosen by France 24, or with ‘friends’, sorted according to their expertise and interests.

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With the February presidential election in Armenia drawing nearer with each passing day and week, and with the Internet increasingly playing an important role in disseminating information on elections the world over, it’s probably a good time to once again make available the Armenian-translation of Solana Larsen, Zephyr Teachout and Mary Joyce’s Election Blogging Guide.

Since its birth in the mid-nineties and its popularization at the turn of the millennium, blogging has been an intriguing platform for personal expression made public. While blogs (first called weblogs) began as online diaries, their uses, and the topics they cover, have been increasing ever since. Blogs have been forums for political speech almost since their inception, yet the full political potential of blogging has yet to be achieved. Election blogging is the next step in the realization of blogs as a tool for political activism. The 2004 American presidential election was the first election closely covered by bloggers. Now, bloggers around the world practice “election blogging” by writing about and commenting on election news.

What is the possible impact of election blogging? Election blogs are important media tools in all countries. However, it is in countries where political speech and press freedoms are limited that blogs have the most important role to play. Blogs, because they exist virtually, can afford to push the boundaries of speech further than broadcast and print journalists, which are more easily regulated by the government. Thus, blogs can act as alternative sources of information in an environment where officially-sanctioned media coverage is biased or incomplete. They can also act as free speech zones. Through comment threads, readers can anonymously discuss political topics they might not be willing to discuss in a non-digital setting. In this way, election blogs can become potent forces for journalistic independence, freedom of speech, government accountability, and active citizenship.

The Armenian translation can be downloaded in Word format (compressed as a .zip file). More blogging resources in English and other languages such as Russian can be downloaded from the NewEurasia site.

Via the Committee to Protect Bloggers, IFEX carries a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists on the arrest of Tunisian blogger and freelance journalist Slim Boukhdhir. He is charged with “aggression against a public employee” and the “violation of public morality standards.”

Under the penal code, the charges could bring 18 months in prison. Boukhdhir was also charged under a 1993 national identity card law with “refusal to show his identification card to a public security agent.” He could be fined under that law.

A court in the suburban city of Sakiet Ezzeit denied his release today. The hearing is scheduled to resume on December 4. Authorities did not disclose the basis for the charges.

“The Tunisian government is again using the judicial system to silence independent-minded journalists and bloggers,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. “Slim Boukhdhir has been a frequent target of assault and harassment by plainclothes police and it appears the courts are now taking their turn.”

The news is a week old, but I only came across it a few minutes ago and consider that bloggers writing on political themes anywhere in the world should give such cases exposure on their blogs. Anyway, more information can be found here.

Following on from problems sending emails because ArmenTel is on an international blacklist for spam, it now seems as though I can’t access or update my main Oneworld Multimedia site or the Armenia Election Monitor 2008 blog. Instead, I have to use any other internet provider other than ArmenTel. For now, I’m not sure why I can access other sites inside and outside Armenia, but not my own. Whereas before I couldn’t send emails via an ArmenTel connection, I now also can’t receive them.

Anyway, this blog is thankfully not affected, but if anyone has any ideas as to why this situation has arisen please leave a comment. I’d also like to hear from other ArmenTel ISP users if the same is true for them. The URLS I can’t access are the following:

http://www.oneworld.am
http://blog.oneworld.am