YEREVAN, March 15. /ARKA/. The Internet and, in particular, the social networking services  as a primary source of news have overtaken TV for the first time in Armenia, Director of the Region Research Center Laura Baghdasaryan told reporters today, presenting the findings of a media consumption study.

The study conducted from January 10 to February 10, 2019 embraced 1,150 residents in 19 rural and 34 rural communities across Armenia. It was conducted to clarify the amount of information citizens get from television, newspapers, social networks, online media and other sources.

"For the first time in many years, 58.9% of respondents said that the main source of news and information for them was the Internet (66% together with social networking services), television ranked second (35.7%), and online media ranked third. It is noteworthy that the radio and print media have significantly given in to such sources of information as relatives, friends and neighbors," said Baghdasaryan.

According to her, the main reason for this result is the fact that television is absolutely not adapted for Internet users.

“If television channels want to endure this competition with the Internet and social networking services, they need to enforce radical reforms,” said Baghdasaryan, stressing that some changes are already being observed, in particular, the Public Television of Armenia represents not only the government’s opinions, but also the opinions of the opposition and ordinary citizens.

Users noted Facebook (73%), Instagram (30.3%), Odnoklassniki (23.4%) and Twitter (4.3%) social networking services as the most popular sources of news and information. A small number also named Vkontakte and Telegram.

The study showed that 37% of users consider Facebook as the main source of news and information in particularly tense times; it is followed by the online media. At the same time, about a quarter of the population read the news only in Facebook, ignoring newspapers and television. At the same time, 53% of active users use Facebook as a source of distribution news and information.

"Recently, politicians have begun to actively use Facebook to communicate with the population via live broadcasts, and polls show that about half of the population consider this format useful, while 41.4% have a negative attitude to this format," said Baghdasaryan. -0-