18.09.2019 The Second Seminar on՛՛ Human Rights and Human Rights in the Eastern Partnership Countries and Russia՛՛ through the Media was held.

#CivilSocietyCooperation

This time the workshop was held in the Nor Geghi community of Kotayk marz. Kotayk Marz is one of the largest regions of Armenia and is quite close to Yerevan, but active public life is mainly concentrated in the regional center of Hrazdan and the largest city – Abovyan. In small settlements such as villages and small towns, young people mostly receive information from social networks, and social networks, especially Facebook, these days are divided into several areas and it is difficult for an inexperienced reader to distinguish between the true and false news. The seminar was held at Aghajanov Agricultural College in Nor Geghi. This community and college were chosen because the public and educational life of the village and several nearby villages is mainly concentrated in the college. The meeting was held here at the suggestion of the College Career Center.

The meeting was held here at the suggestion of the College Career Center.

The seminar was attended by over thirty students, lecturers and other guests, including lawyers, media speakers, and others. After the presentation of the program, brief information on the differentiation of information was presented, how to navigate the media flow, how the media works, how the media differs from propaganda and advertising, what tricks the media uses, who makes the media ” the product that we consume, what is the

purpose pursued by the producers, to whom the saying is directed,

Who benefits from all this, who suffers …

Discussions on these topics had a very interesting response among the audience. Attorney Arsen Nersisyan introduced the importance of argumentative media, like freedom of speech in contemporary media is often confused with anarchy. Very often the media or journalist spreads some sensational news, the source of which cannot be clarified or clarified, as by the Law on Press in Armenia the media or journalist is not obliged to reveal the source of their information. Sometimes a victim of false information applies to the court, where the media can be fined or denied. The speaker cited the example of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) according to which in the event of a violation of the right of privacy and the threat to the public interest, freedom of speech is subject to be restricted. Intolerance, hate speech based on racial, religious, ethnic, sexual, or political motives are also manifestations of freedom of speech but are unacceptable in the democratic society. Our organization’s longtime partner and public figure Anahit Tovmasyan mentioned the role of social media in Armenia and especially in the lives of young people because they get the main information from social networks, and often discussing this or that news on social networks can lead to many changes and distortions.

And a person devoid of media literacy suffers because of false information. To this aim, Mrs. Tovmasyan offered an interactive game to a large audience. The person sitting in the first place conveyed one expression to the second, and thus to the last person. The result was a surprise to everyone, as the initial version of the phrase had been completely changed. The author of the proposal commented on a specific example of her theory that it is necessary to take an analytical approach to any information.

Marine Kostandyan from the core team introduced the nature of misinformation and false propaganda at the international level.