The media field is changing before my eyes. Both in the world and in Armenia. The Russian-Ukrainian war, without a doubt, has had a great impact and will continue to have an impact on all information flows.

In addition, there were objective historical changes that would have taken place, but at a much slower rate, without war. In any case, we have what we have. We will have something more in the future. And it is important, as always, not to chase after all of it. In some cases, it is better to be on the train rather than in the role of the one behind the train.

What do we have today, what should we take into account?

Information control on US and EU law enforcement platforms will intensify. Starting from content censorship, which today, for example, hits the Armenian users themselves.

We are talking about users and pages blocked for posting Monte’s picture. And the current difficult international situation, which is unlikely to change for the better in the coming months, is forcing the moderation of social networks to become more and more strict.

Platform leaders prefer to tighten moderation so as not to be accused of spreading false or extremist information. This means that arbitrary news can be blocked at any time or its rate of display will be sharply reduced if a link or photo is posted that the moderators of the social network do not like. The rules of the game are becoming incomprehensible, and appeals are almost impossible.

This has already had its consequences in a number of countries. Global emigration to the platform Telegram has begun, where there is almost no moderation. It is expected that in the coming months the number of users of this platform will double and exceed one billion. Telegram has been the most downloaded application in Armenia for several weeks now. Do our media outlets use this opportunity? Basically, no. We’re not talking about the fact that they are not only not there, but also it is a case of being present within the style of the given platform. The internal rules are not taken into account. Posting links on Telegram does not mean that the platform is being used yet.

The other issue is that the audience prefers visual information more and more, the texts are read-only when they are concise, informative, and short.

That is why the audience prefers the telegram format in the case of textual information. But by and large, the consumption is developing more and more towards the photo-infographic-video format. And this is what leads to the fact that Instagram and TikTok are becoming the most consumed platforms both in the world and in Armenia.

The audience on Instagram is already almost equal to Facebook and the moment is not far when the platforms may switch places. In terms of content, Instagram is already such that it allows the dissemination of political and public information. For a long time now, Instagram has not been just a place to share the pleasure of dancing and eating. Hetq, for example, is able to successfully use Instagram.

And, of course, we move on to TikTok again, which today allows us to spread information at an indescribable pace. Unfortunately, there is almost no quality journalistic content in Armenia. And then the same journalists complain that low-quality videos are being spread on TikTok.

And in narrower terms of content, another very big topic is opened. The fact that objective journalism is almost buried under bias, and propaganda.

And this is happening all over the world, at an indescribably fast pace. All this will have a tragic effect on societies. It will distort the qualities of information consumption by the audience. But on the other hand, it opens up great opportunities for quality data journalism. And all this must be taken into account.

Samvel Martirosyan

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