Today I decided to describe what makes me sad in our information field. When I say “field,” I imagine a generalized phenomenon, where both the media and those who actively form opinions on social networks, who have already begun getting called influencers in Armenian. That is, everything that we as a society consume with different equipment, in modern Armenian, with gadgets.

To express the whole depressive state, of course, I have condensed the nuances, set aside a small number of positive examples and tried to make (perhaps unacceptable) generalizations.

And let me emphasize one more thing. These are just a few sad facts. I simply reached for the hat and pulled some of them out with my eyes closed. And so, a few points of sadness.

Lack of interesting topics

If we put aside the description of what is happening at the moment and “our sources report in the Kremlin, NASA and through the Chinese wall,” we will come across very few really interesting, meaningful pieces of material. I do not even open my mouth to talk about interesting, meaningful and long materials. Material, blog post, at least a long status for goodness sake.

Let’s not forget that now I am exaggerating, I am blowing the topic out of proportion, but it is not so difficult to do, because there are few really interesting, deep materials. There are many interesting cases and various revelations about corruption and other negative phenomena. But the absorbent longreads that you will read before going to bed are few.

They are so few that when they happen, you pity reading them so that they do not end suddenly.

Absence of complicated topics. Lack of materials written in complicated language.

In order for language to develop, people have to write and read clever, history-and-perspective articles, sometimes with fuzzy formulations that use metaphors, hyperbole, hidden associations, quotes from other writers, and so on. And one more thing.

In order for the public mind to develop, people should read complex articles on complex topics, scientific topics should not always be written by illiterate journalists, in the language of a kindergarten magazine.

Most of the material on serious topics immediately violates my intelligence, my faith in our future, my hope in our past, my taste and my phone battery.

We have a problem with related topics

You see, a journalist can make an interesting discovery. The activist may find something unprecedented in another way. And then you wait for the topic to open, where it will go, what will happen.

But, it turns out that there are already other topics, time has passed. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has entered our daily lives and has become one of the main information behaviors.

Let me give you just one example. In the first days of January 2020, a person was arrested who was spreading fake news through the fake Facebook user “Diana Harutyunyan” account, which could disrupt Armenian-Iranian relations. There were many interesting moments in this case.

It was incomprehensible how they managed to find the fake in one day, while many fakes have been quietly doing their dark deeds for years. It was also unclear how that person would be judged since spreading false news is not a clear criminal act. And finally, it is not clear who it was, because, in the video of the NSS, the face was covered, the name was hidden.

But now, if you try to find publications in the press about this case and its developments, it seems as though nothing happened.

Short memory

This seems to be a big problem facing all mankind. Indescribable flows of information, dependence on devices in the face of an information siege have led to a decline in our overall memory power. In our country, it is expressed in a very diverse and multicolored way.

For example, the public can easily and calmly experience fresh surprise/joy/anger at something that is a repetition, an event that has already happened several times.

But it’s not only the public perception that is like that. Journalists are also forgetful, who can present such a repeating phenomenon like Halley’s comet as something that is unprecedented and unique.

This is also the structure of the materials in many, many media outlets. It is very rare to see the background or context of a particular piece of news, who are the people mentioned in the article. It seems that the editor opened their eyes for the first time, got acquainted with the world of light and described only what they saw.

Since I am also immersed in all this, avoiding writing long meaningful texts, I will stop my writing here. Especially since I have already forgotten what I was writing about.

Samvel Martirosyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.