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17.03.2011

INFORMATION POLICY OF THE AZERBAIJANI ARMENIAN-LANGUAGE TV CHANNELS

   

Anna Zhamakochyan, Diana Galstyan

A.Zhamakochyan - Senior expert at the Center of Informational Studies of “Noravank” Foundation
Diana Galstyan - Expert at the Center of Informational Studies of “Noravank” Foundation

Since October 2009 Azerbaijani propaganda obtained new mechanism by opening ATV International1 (ATV-INT) satellite TV channel which is broadcasting in four languages (Russian, Armenian, Iranian and English).

There is one news program in Armenian which has been the main subject of our study. Here we would like to present some qualitative and quantitative characteristic features which had been observed during the monitoring2 of the Armenian-language news program of ATV in the period of 2010.02.23-2010.02.26. The aforementioned period covers the Khojalu tragedy memorial day (February 26) and previous three days; our purpose was to study the essence and methods of Azerbaijani propaganda in the context of infologeme3 created round Khojalu as the most typical case. The quantitative data brought below is acquired through the case study4, thus it cannot be extended to other programs and it is typical only for the Armenian-language new programs in the aforementioned period (Table A presents the number of the news observed and their length by days). But the qualitative observations deriving from this quantitative data characterize information policy of ATV-INT in general.

Table A
The Scope of News Studied (by days)

1. Information time span

While observing the time span we can see that, not taking into consideration the operative period, (one week to the day of broadcasting), most of the news – 45%, refer to “1994-1998” (time span is presented in Table 1). This data mean that in the information content of the channel great importance is attached to the events of the period of the war between Azerbaijan and NKR.

Table 1
To which time span the news refers

2.Topic of the news; its main message

The topics are singled out through the revelation of main message in the news, i.e. by formulating the main message sent by each piece of news. By grouping them, 10 main topics, which are presented in Table 2, were formed. It is evident that 8 of them refer to the RA, NKR and entire Armeniancy, as well as they have anti-Armenian content.

The frequency of each topic and its length show the significance ATN-INT attaches to it. On the days observed, as it was expected, the topic, which was unequivocally singled out, was representation of “the guilt of the Armenians in Khojalu and other events”. This topic formed 35% of all the news and 41.1% of the length of all the news (at the average every 2 of 5 minutes referred to the aforementioned topic, see Table 2). It is one of the main and most wide-spread topics of the Azerbaijani anti-Armenian propaganda not only on the days observed but also in the anti-Armenian propaganda in general.

Table 2
What the news is about?

It is remarkable that the topic which presents “Khojalu” events as a “tragedy” or “genocide” is distinguished by categorical and incontestable discourse. E.g. “during those bloody events, known as “Khojalu genocide” thousands Azerbaijanis were killed and captured, the city of Khojalu was leveled to the ground...”, “in Baku the presentation of a joint video by rapper Tony Blackman and Azerbaijani “Dayrman” band “Justice of Khojalu”, devoted to the genocide perpetrated by the Armenians in Khojalu, took place”.

Very often detailed enumeration of the losses is used which has a distinct tendency to exaggerate and this fact is even openly mentioned. E.g. “As a result of this genocide 613 people were killed, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old people, 8 families were fully exterminated, 25 children lost both of their parents, and 130 lost one of the parents. 487 people were wounded, and among them 76 children, 150 people are missing. Though this list besides those who were killed from firearms also includes those who died from cold, this is big number...”. Aspiration to substantiate propagandistic theses by exaggerating and blowing up as well as disseminating falsehood, reflects official policy of Azerbaijan, because Armenian researchers found many other similar facts5. It is also important that the topic of “Khojalu” is not presented discretely, almost always it is used in the context of Karabakh war, during which, among other losses suffered by Azerbaijan, “Khojalu tragedy” was also listed. In fact, it serves as a reason which allows presenting Armenia as an aggressor and occupant in Karabakh conflict and an argument for the protection of the Azerbaijani interests. All the aforementioned is also substantiated by the news program on February 26 (Khojalu memorial day), which was finished by a lyrical reportage. In that reportage against the background of the pictures about the NKR (where mainly Shushi and Berdzor are presented) with the scenes from Soviet and war times, the child’s voice sings a patriotic song which is ended by a threatening promise “We’ll be back!”

The other important topic is “Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan; assisting to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan”, which occupied 10.3% of broadcasting time. This topic is mainly referred in the context of foreign policy and international relations. This discourse within the scope of the topic is taking place from the “precautionary” positions, i.e. “belonging of NK to Azerbaijan” and assistance of the world community in the negotiations “on territorial integrity of Azerbaijan” is not questioned: “Today international community, and particularly co-chairman, proposes to solve the problems based on the principle of the territorial integrity”. Thus, their aim comes to one issue – “understanding of the reality by Armenia”. Here the official thesis is singled out: “second Armenian state will never be created on the Azerbaijani soil”; it has a rich propagandistic sense not only in the plane of the position of Azerbaijan concerning the NKR. It, first of all, postulates the RA as “the state created on the Azerbaijani territory”, thus substantiating its tough position in “not allowing to create on that territory second Armenian state”. Such an explicit accusation also shows the possibility of claims to the territory of today’s RA6.

ATN-INT also turns to the sounding of economic problems by the opposition in Armenia and to the criticism in parliament and mass media in regard to the social and economic policy of the authorities (see Table2, line 6). Meanwhile, the discussion of the economic problems of Azerbaijan is never presented. But it is remarkable that on other days it is often spoken about the growing and strengthening economics of the Azerbaijan, its oil industry, developing manufacturing, and the same time they continue to speak about the unsolved issues of the Armenian economy. And usually the problems of Armenia are emphasized in the context of information, which either precedes or follows the news about the success of Azerbaijan, and sometimes even within the framework of the same news. The technique of “contrast emphasis” is the most widespread in the propaganda. Thus, e.g. in the news on 26.10.2009 in the reportage about the troubles with funding of the building of the Iran-Armenia railway it is mentioned: “Let us remind you that while the Iran-Armenia project is still in the stage of conversations, the other day the representatives of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia met again to implement Iran-Azerbaijan-Russia railway project”. The postulate “economic weakness of Armenia as opposed to the growing economic power of Azerbaijan” is one the classical topics of the Azerbaijani propaganda7. In order to substantiate this propagandistic thesis, only negative information or the information, which substantiates this thesis, is taken from the information flow of Armenia, and, which is not the least important, the statements of the “oppositional figures” cited from the Armenian sources are also brought. In order to consolidate this postulate the mechanism of impacting through the usage of the 7-10 year old video sequences, forming the image of the Armenia as a country that sticks in past and which is not able to develop, are used. But in this plane ATV-INT is not always consistent, because very often it uses video materials taken from “H1” Armenian TV channel and sometimes alongside with the outdated pictures the views of modern Armenia can be seen. Due to this, in some news programs the maps of the Armenia and NK separately from the bordering countries could be seen. In the video material the logo of H1 is usually smeared.

“Armenian plagiarism and appropriation of the Azerbaijani culture” is also a widespread propagandistic postulate and serves to promote the interests of Azerbaijan within the scope of the NKR issue. Thus, in the report about “the Azerbaijani origin” of “Sari geli” song, “discussions of the cultural figures of Armenia and Azerbaijan” round it and “open confession” of imitation of the main works of Uzeir Khadjibekov by Aram Khachaturyan” the main conclusion is drawn: “Armenia tends to appropriate Azerbaijani dances, songs, operas and even lands, of which every citizen of Azerbaijan is proud”.

3.Initiators of the subject news

On the days observed the news was based on the informational events initiated by the official Azerbaijani bodies. On their initiative 58.3% of the informational events referred to the information about “the guilt of the Armenians in the Khojalu and other events”, 25% - “to the Azerbaijani informational and political actions and appeals to impose constraints on Armenia”. Correspondingly, official Azerbaijani bodies, as the initiators of the information, in 83.3% of cases made anti-Armenian statements (see Table 3).

4.Influence through the video sequence

During the presentation of the news in 32.5% of cases the scenes with corpses and wounded people were shown, which were dominating (i.e. the longest scenes) in 12.5% of cases (See Table 4.1 and Table 4.2). Almost all of them were used in the news concerning “the guilt of the Armenians in the Khojalu and other events” and in another case in topic “NK conflict and settlement”. The TV Company repeated the same video sequence even in the news programs which followed each other. Thus, in news on 26.02.2010 the fragments of one and the same material were shown in the first, second, third, forth, sixth and seventh news programs. This data come to prove that ATN-INT tends to impact audience psychologically.

Table 3
The main topics in the context of informational events

Another case of manipulation practice of ATV-INT through the video sequence was considered in the context of the developments of the recent OSCE summit. On December 2 in the video sequence presenting the summit the text about Armenia as “destructive” party in the process of the peaceful negotiations and “occupant” was accompanied by the scenes of the act of terrorism committed on October 27, 1999 in the RA National Assembly where the criminals were shooting from the guns: “The president of Azerbaijan stated that he cannot stand the situation when Azerbaijani territories are occupied any more”. Those who use such tricks tend to impose on Armenia the image of the criminal. The scenes of the events of October 27 may exert emotional influence on the Armenian audience but cannot affect Armenian self-perception because there was no glorification of the criminals in Armenia but quite the opposite.

Table 4.1
The presence of the scenes of violence, corpses and wounded people

Table 4.2
The dominating theme of the attendant scenes and/or video sequences

The aforementioned data shows some details of Azerbaijani ATV-INT TV channel policy. Study of information with the help of different variables substantiates that Azerbaijani information policy is “obviously anti-Armenian”; it is initiated and implemented mainly by the official Azerbaijani actors. This preliminary data is not only a signal for further studies but also for the elaboration and implementation of further steps directed to increase the level of information security of the population of the RA and NKR.

1ATV international satellite TV channel was created on the basis of Azad Azerbaijan TV channel. They intended to broadcast in 6 languages (in Azerbaijani, English, Russian, Iranian, Turkish and Armenian) in order to serve the Azerbaijani propagandistic purposes (http://news.day.az/hitech/149378.html), but however, they are still broadcasting in 4 languages.

2Separate news or informational reportage was taken as a unit of monitoring and analysis.

3Infologem is a notion expressing the modification of informational mythologem which represents poor or false information created to substitute basic facts by artifacts (see for details «Ադրբեջանի հակահայկական տեղեկատվական համակարգը», «Նորավանք», 2009, էջ 39).

4A case study is a research method directed to the in-depth, comprehensive and complex analysis of the social phenomenon on the example of a separate empiric object (case) http://socioline.ru/pages/irina-kozina-case-study-nekotorye-metodicheskie-problemy

5The researchers from Armenia who studied the lists of victims among the population of Khojalu mention that in the official and other lists of the Azerbaijani side different names and numbers (508, 530, 601) are presented and besides there are many uncertainties (http://xocali.net/RU/List/text.html). You can see other documentary falsifications on the same topic on xocali.net web site.

6The Armenian response to this topic can be formed round the following idea: “For the recent 100 years Armenian people had gone through much sorrow. We could not and cannot allow our people to appear under the threat of pogroms again and cannot allow loosing another part of our motherland only because it was given to Azerbaijan”.

7See particulary «Ադրբեջանի հակահայկական տեղեկատվական համակարգը», «Նորավանք», p. 57, 2009։

“Globus National Security”, issue 1, 2011

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