At the end of each year, media experts and geeks try to forecast the journalism and social media development trends for the coming year.

What developments are expected in 2014? Media geeks in Armenia share their predictions.

Arpine Grigoryan, Head of Corporate Affairs and Communications, PanArmenian.net 

In my opinion, there will be more multimedia [news] pieces next year; news websites will become more integrated with social media, gathering their readers’ opinions and creating news stories from information shared on social networks. 

This year’s trends were short video services such as those offered by Instagram and Vine — I think, they will be begin to be applied in the news media sector. There’s a trend in the world now to offer hyperlocal news; that is, news having a direct connection with the data that a reader has shared with the website; for example, where he is or or what interests he has. 

I hope that journalism based on “copying-and-pasting” [content] will begin to disappear and will be transformed into the coordination of content. 

News websites have to upgrade to what is known as “responsive [web] design”: design that automatically adapts to the screen that the reader is using. Gradually, the boundaries between mobile and PC versions will be erased: there will be only one version for different types of screens. 

Samvel Martirosyan, Media Expert

I think, the time has come when journalists and news outlets will no longer cling to only one social network and will use numerous social networks.

It’s already apparent that some journalists and news outlets have begun to use Instagram. Many put more of an emphasis on YouTube, as a means of live broadcasting.

Smartphones will begin to have more of an impact, thanks to the scale of social media use. Smartphones, naturally, provide greater opportunities to journalists on the ground to disseminate information via various channels. It also seems to me that we’ll have Armenian-produced mobile apps, which will be applicable in journalism. 

Mikayel Ghazaryan, Geek

Since everything is accelerating, I predict that methods to digest information more quickly will develop — multimedia journalism, infographs, photo stories. 

I think, story telling and data journalism will also develop; I hope, investigation journalism, likewise. 

Artur Papyan, Media Expert

Extraordinary social networks will continue to develop; that is, those networks that are not for everyone: I’m talking about Pinterest, Instagram, and so on, since people now are trying to flee Facebook.

The other trend, which is obviously evident, is the development of visual content: videos and photos will increase, while there will be fewer text.

I think, next year somehow will also be a year of fatigue for people: people are tired of social networks, of news, of everything. We have to try to get those weary people interested through human stories, photo stories, and multimedia stories. If news outlets will be able to present stories through infographs and visualization, it will be a triumphant strategy for them. 

In conversation with Anna Barseghyan.