BLACK PR SELF-DESTRUCTIVE
Naira Khachatryan

Hayots Ashkharh
Dec 21 2007
Armenia

Political-scientist GERASIM BARSEGHYAN was the guest speaker of
"Pastark" club yesterday. According to the political scientist the
2008 presidential elections differ from the preceding ones in terms
of the tendencies manifested at the current pre-campaign stage.

"First of all, I would single out such a manifestation as black PR.

At the current stage preceding the campaign its specific weigh is
extremely large and is not in any way comparable with the black
PR conducted during the past presidential elections," G. Barsegyan
mentioned, speaking about the use of illicit technologies.

As a result of the current course of the developments, the campaign
may lose its ideology, and the voter may become disoriented.

"In this respect, black PR also provides a solution to the task that
was set to it. From the standpoint of those who use impermissible
technologies, the more there are disoriented people, the better."

Furthermore, "illicit" technologies are self-destructive, "For those
who make use of them, they may be twice as destructive as they are
for the political rival."

The anti-rating pre-election campaign is also one of the peculiarities
of the current presidential campaign in terms of its emphasis. "An
anti-rating PR works with serious emphases. I can understand the
politicians to whom those rating data are not advantageous. I
also understand those media which are trying to cast doubts on
the data. However, one thing is obvious: those surveys are really
conducted, and the data they represent are very close to reality,
especially in terms of the calculation of the candidates’ electoral
rating." The speaker nonetheless set a clear-cut demarcation line
between the surveys having scientific-analytical bases and methodology,
and those conducted via telephones and the Internet. "Our press
makes use of that type of surveys and publishes ratings which do not
correspond to reality. They are not trustworthy."

According to Gerasim Barseghyan, while selecting certain types of
technologies for the presidential elections, there is one factor that
should be considered as a starting point: that the country is solving
a problem for the coming ten years, "The people who are concerned
by the country’s future want to see serious, perspective approaches,
while in case of a black PR, they do not see it." The media serving
for the interests of the first President is especially outstanding
in terms of using such technologies. "He mentioned many times that
his target is the pro-Government candidate. However, every single
day, the media serving for his interests publish materials degrading
and compromising the candidates by the use of extreme methods," he
noted and at the same time underscored that as far as this issue was
concerned, he did not particularly make any difference between the
candidate and the media supporting him. He is also convinced that
there will be other people making use of black PR technologies. "I
am sure that at least three activists will pursue that path; they
are simply involved in all those affairs."

The political scientist mentioned that not all the nominated candidates
have demonstrated activeness in the pre-campaign period, and as a
result, it is impossible to speak about their political goals from
the point of view of campaign technologies. "We are do not yet have
thorough information as to why they have advanced their candidacies. We
can have hypotheses; as to the goals each of the candidates has and
the problems he solves, it will become evident during the campaign."

In the estimation of the speaker, the most correct campaign is
being conducted by the pro-Government candidate. "Anyway, there are
no obvious tendencies of black PR, although sometimes we hear some
responses. But in terms of the dosage of the information, they do not
go beyond the limits of correctness. Not responding to the political
opponents for fear of going beyond the limits of correctness also
contains a danger in terms of being misunderstood by society. "The
people will say that the accusations which were addressed to the
given candidate were real. Therefore, the problem here consists in
measuring out the information in proper doses."

The speaker gave the names of concrete candidates who have not gone
beyond the limits of correctness, "Vahan Hovhannisyan observes
political correctness at the current stage. I would also add the
name of Arthur Baghdasaryan, who has not yet made any response to
the serious accusations addressed to him. He too, has chosen this
tactics which is perhaps justified in time aspect."