Monitoring Study Found Few Instances of Hate Speech in 9 Armenian Media Outlets

Findings from a study conducted between April and December 2013, monitoring 9 news outlets in Armenia for hate speech, revealed not so many expressions of hate overall. The findings were presented to the press today by Ashot Melikyan, president of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, the NGO that carried out the study.

Of the 9 media outlets monitored, 3 were TV stations (the First Channel of the Public TV of Armenia, H1; Yerkir Media; and Kentron TV), 3 were print media (the dailies Azg, Haykakan Zhamanak, Hayots Ashkharh), and 3 were online media (1in.am, 7or.am, and Tert.am). The TV stations' main news programs were monitored: H1's Haylur, Yerkir Media's Yerkirn Aysor and Yerkri Shabaty on Saturdays, and Kentron's Epikentron ("Epicenter"), as well as the analytical programs following these newscasts (Tesankyun, Yerkri Hartsy, and Urvagits, respectively). All articles and reports of the print and online media were calculated and monitored — except for commercial, political and social advertisements and announcements. 

Melikyan noted that only 1% of all the content (n=151,939) monitored contained hate speech: 0.12% on television, 0.29% in print media, and 0.60% in online media.

"[Instances of hate speech] recur more often in online media than in newspapers or on television programs. In the three websites (1in.am, 7or.am, Tert.am), the overall number of instances of hate speech was 1,097. The highest number was on 7or.am — 567 [instances]. Of these three, the fewest instances of hate speech was seen on Tert.am — 176 examples, while on 1in.am this figure was 354. 

"The least amount of hate speech was observed on the TV station's programs. Overall, 206 instances of hate speech were recorded: the least, on H1, 29 instances; the most, Kentron, 116 instances. In Yerkir Media's programs, there were 61 instances of hate speech observed," he said.

Print media, he said, compared to television and online media is the median. "There were 492 expressions of hate speech in the newspapers monitored. The most was registered by Haykakan Zhamanak, 247 instances; the fewest, in Azg, 86 instances. In Hayots Ashkharh, this figure was 159. 

"The total number of expressions of hate speech in all the media combined was 1,795 — the majority (64.2%) of which, according to the thematic classification, were expressions of political hatred, while 18.8% was social. There was an equal amount of hatred of a sexual and religious nature, each of which comprised 5.5% of the total [hate speech]. 3.7% of the hate speech recorded was of a different nature. Only 2% was discrimination based on ethnicity. By the way, racist expressions were encountered only once, on Kentron TV, and then in the form of criticism by the editorial staff, and the remark was related to the situation in Russia," said Melikyan. 

According to the monitoring results, of the 1,795 instances of hate speech, the attitude expressed by the editorial staff was neutral in 77.1% of cases, positive (agreement) in 21.1% of cases, and critical (negative) in 1.7%.