Amount of Media Attention Given to Rival Parties<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\nOnline media wrote and spoke about the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) the most \u2014 the party which, incidentally, also had the most negative references in the media. The second political party or bloc with the most negative references was the Armenian National Congress\u2013People\u2019s Party of Armenia (Congress\u2013PPA) alliance.<\/p>\n
In fact, the negative references were mostly made by rival political parties. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s also noteworthy that for the first time in the history of electoral processes, online media received paid advertising. HHK and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) had paid advertising in almost all the media outlets. <\/p>\n
The research found that HHK displayed the most negative attitude toward ELQ, Tsarukyan, Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO), and Congress\u2013PPA alliances. The main target of ARF\u2019s criticism and counter-propaganda was Congress\u2013PPA. HHK was the target of criticism for the Armenian Renaissance, Free Democrats, Tsarukyan, and Congress\u2013PPA alliances. ELQ in its speeches criticized everyone but HHK, and Tsarukyan and Congress\u2013PPA alliances the most. The most loyal was the Armenian Communist Party, who expressed negative evaluations of other political groups only a few times.<\/p>\n
All the nine competing parties actively campaigned also on social media, mainly on Facebook, where the campaign was propelled forward not only through the candidates\u2019 Facebook accounts, but also on official pages. <\/p>\n
The pre-campaign stage on Facebook was distinguished by an abundance of paid advertising. And new social media tools were used; for example, live streams, sign language interpretation. Facebook became the first platform where the calls and appeals of different political groups directed at rival parties were heard. <\/p>\n
Visualization of the Election Campaign on Facebook<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nOn Facebook, the number of video materials and photos on the elections exceeded text-based content. And these are the materials that garnered the most reactions from users.<\/p>\n
For the first time, electoral messages were disseminated through music videos. These videos also had a large number of views.<\/p>\n
For example, on HHK\u2019s page, a video of the election campaign concluding event garnered 85,000 views, while Congress\u2013PPA leader Levon Ter-Petrossian\u2019s interview with Kentron TV had 288,00 views.<\/p>\n
HHK\u2019s music video \u201cLet\u2019s Change the World\u201d had over 140,000 views in the first few days; Free Democrats\u2019 \u201cWe Can Do It, We Are Free\u201d rap music video, 143,000.<\/p>\n
Congress\u2013PPA\u2019s \u201cPeace Anthem\u201d produced specially for the campaign had 101,000 views.<\/p>\n
According to Region Research Center, smear campaigns this time were not a \u201cvery extensive phenomenon\u201d on social media. There were almost no caricatures, demotivational posters, or memes of political figures and competing political groups. Neither were there any oppositional social network flash mobs and so on.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the only Facebook page spreading \u201cblack PR\u201d was the \u201cI am against the Republican Party\u201d page. <\/p>\n