ArevikBadalyan.thearmenia.com

According to various calculations there are 3000-3500 Armenian blogs. The active period of the Armenian blogosphere started in 2007 during the parliamentary elections. In this period and afterwards during the presidential elections Armenian bloggers wrote mainly about political life. After the 1st of March (when the opposition’s demonstrations were broken up by the government) when there was an emergency situation and the work of mass media was prohibited in the country blogs became the only source of  information.

“But now when the political life is not as active as it was 2 years ago, cultural and personal blogs became  most popular. Thematic blogs are active as well, especially the ones about IT and marketing,” said blogger Shushan Harutyunyan, who is known in Armenian blogosphere is famous by the name Blansh. In her blog Shushan made the first post on her blog in 2006.

It is already a year that Vardan Papikyan has had a blog. He writes mainly about IT. With his friends he founded the website www.ireport.am, where they write about IT and give an opportunity to people to write their stories. They founded “The club of Armenian bloggers” and organized two meetings. “During the meeting Armenian bloggers spoke about the situation with the internet. It is slow and expensive in Armenia. And though there is no censorship in the Armenian blogosphere yet, bloggers were worried that it could happen with blogs too, because the government already controlled TV and some newspapers,” said Vardan Papikyan.

Shushan Harutyunyan isn’t worried even about the direct form of censorship, when the government can just close the website. Armenian bloggers open their blogs mainly at  www.wordpress.com and www.livejournal.com and even the government is not able to prohibit the work of those websites.

“A blog is a democratic tool and the blogger is totally free to express his/her own views. In my opinion the important thing is to follow the rules of ethics,” said Edgar Khachatryan, who created the website www.thearmenia.com. It is an Armenian portal where people can have a blog.

According to Shushan Harutyunyan, who is the blogger of the online media www.7or.am, with the development of  citizen journalism, there is a trend that people started to trust citizen journalists more than professionals. And this trend forced  the traditional media to open their own blogs. “Bloggers wrote more quickly than  journalists. While  journalists are checking the facts, bloggers have already written the story on their blogs. There is a competition between  bloggers and journalists. And it is  journalists’ task to rule that field,” said Shushan Harutyunyan. On the online media’s blog Shushan wrote the stories with her opinion, remarks and all readers’ comments immediately appeared on the blog.

While in developed countries the bloggers can earn some money through their blogs, in Armenia  blogs mainly are only for self  promotion. The idea of having their own blog and the freedom to express the opinion attracts a lot of people.  The people whose every speech becomes popular because of traditional media open their own blogs. On www.livejournal.com the prime minister of Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan, opened his own blog. The first post was made in January. During this time the prime minister’s blog  has become one of the most popular in Armenia. It has hundreds of comments and thousands of visitors.

“I have questions for you. And I am sure you have questions for me. I think that we need mutual attention which means that our contact through this blog will be interesting,” wrote the prime minister in his first post.

The other members of the government didn’t announce that they are going to open their own blogs. Only the press secretary of the minister of Diaspora Affairs, Tevos Nersisyan, said that soon the minister will have her own blog which will give an opportunity to have direct contact with the society.