ArmInfo. Revision of current legislation governing broadcasting is a necessity. Independent MP Arman Babajanyan announced this on January 16 during parliamentary hearings on legislative changes in the field of audiovisual media.
He noted that in the work of local media, especially television companies, there is a fine line between the provision of information and the implementation of propaganda, which turns the media into a weapon of political struggle in the information war. According to him, the current situation in television companies has a number of objective and subjective reasons. So, for almost 20 years, the television sector was privatized by the then authorities, and television companies carried out a political propaganda mission.
Under these conditions, as Babajayan noted, the television companies did not act within the framework of the law, but worked according to imperative requirements adopted in government offices. <Thus, the television companies played the role of the propaganda shield of the authorities, presenting to the audience a colored virtual reality that has nothing to do with the true state of affairs. As a result, for almost 20 years, citizens have lived in two parallel realities>, he said.
After the "velvet revolution", it would seem that television companies would have to get rid of the need to carry out propaganda by order of the former authorities, but this was a misleading impression. "Since the majority of TV companies are owned by the former authorities, or by persons related to them, they began to work in the opposite direction, presenting the viewers with reality not in pink but in black," Babajanyan emphasized. Thus, according to him, television companies do not fulfill their functions of providing reliable and objective information, and the current legislation is devoid of mechanisms to combat this phenomenon. Babajanyan emphasized that the provision of information by television companies should imply social and social responsibility, which is practically absent today. "We must return to citizens the constitutional right to receive objective and impartial information," the deputy said.