Introduction of media literacy among the effective tools to strengthen public’s information immunity – Aram Ananyan

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Information sovereignty is the state’s exclusive right to carry out national-state information policy, Aram Ananyan – Director of ARMENPRESS state news agency, said within the frames of the inter-parliamentary hearings on ‘Issues of effective countering collective security system to hybrid wars in the contemporary circumstances’, talking about information sovereignty issues.

“This term, being relatively new, has different definitions, but the contemporary social science has not yet given a single description of this concept. The main feature of public and political thought of the 21st century is that the challenges facing the modern world sometimes remain without response. The world is in search of solutions to new problems which provides base to many thinkers to consider the present as a period of uncertainties. One of the scenarios of the development of contemporary world was formed in 2016 which was called 4th industrial revolution – a movement of civilization to a new technological revolution which will radically change the course of people’s life, and that change will be strange to the experience a person has accumulated for millennia”, Aram Ananyan said presenting the report titled ‘The role of state news agencies on ensuring information sovereignty of democratic societies’.

According to him, information environment is going to be the stage of formation of the new world, thus mass media will appear in the center of that circle.

“The Internet and social media are no longer part of exclusively invisible, virtual reality. The Internet is not only a railroad of modern economy and communication, but also an important environment in parallel with the human activities. Therefore, and very soon that parallel reality will need some kind of harmonization. Today that challenge and imperative exist if we take into account both its economic necessity and the human rights protection problems starting from violation of immunity of personal data up to other fields of person’s activity”, Ananyan said, expressing confidence that in this sense the ongoing developments in the contemporary world will soon or later bring to the states to the challenge to define the provision of unique information sovereignty. “The only difference will be that that type of sovereignty will be less linked with the existing attributes of the state’s sovereignty for a simple reason that the progressive rates of technological development will exceed for several times the states’ opportunities and capacities to set legislative field and regulations”, he added.

In the report the Director of ARMENPRESS also touched upon the Arab Spring, the political developments following it, the use of hybrid warfare methods in the armed conflicts, as well as the phenomenon of “fake news”.

“The latter is such a problem which cannot remain unnoticed. Now “fake news” are not innocent jokes, they have serious political, economic and psychological consequences. According to some theorists the share of “fake news” in the 20th century has been several times higher than now. However, the current speeds and inclusion of information dissemination make them more available to a wide circle of readers. In this sense, the societies of the future are more subject to information infiltrations and can be vulnerable in a propaganda sense. The situation is more acute in those countries which are committed to the values of free internet. Unfortunately, we often witness a situation when the demand for the protection of freedom and free internet is not an information shield of democracy, but rather it is an information sword for organizing provocations”, he said, adding that the contemporary societies also face public’s media literacy problem.

“In the era of the Internet and information we have to introduce media literacy like we teach the Traffic Rules. This is one of the effective tools to strengthen the public’s information immunity”, Aram Ananyan highlighted.

He also attached significant importance to the concrete role of state news agencies in countering the abovementioned challenges jointly with the state.

“The contemporary world provides the set of tools and opportunity to the state news agencies to give effective response to these issues. The current media world is highly competitive, and this environment changes the role of state news agencies turning them into an organization conducting a professional work to make the policy run by the state available and attractive to other information means and the public, rather than a propaganda tool”, he said, adding that the experience of ARMENPRESS – Armenia’s state news agency, is remarkable in this sense since over the past 5 years the agency’s team managed to create a content based on this philosophy as a result having the largest network of subscribers in Armenia and becoming the country’s leading news agency cited by international media outlets.

Syuzi Muradyan