Covering violence, brutality, information that has a negative impact on upbringing by mass media has been discussed and criticized many times. The issues related to this problem have become so topical that the National Assembly will attempt to solve them, since the National Assembly standing committee on science, education, culture, youth and sports made a decision today to hold parliamentary hearings in November to discuss the issue of radio and TV programs having negative impact on citizens. At the suggestion of the committee chairman, after the hearings, a legislative proposal will be prepared and put into circulation based on the standards devised by the National Commission on TV and Radio. www.aravot.am tried to get more details during a conversation with Mr. Davtyan inquiring whether there had been complaints of citizens about concrete programs and what was expected during the hearings. A. Davtyan explained, “The committee decided today to hold hearings on violence, brutality, phenomena having negative impact on upbringing in mass media and their coverage not only on TV and radio programs, but also all types of mass media. It is intended that we will invite representatives of mass media to the hearings too, in order to understand what the situation is like today. One of the issues will be that we see, for example, in electronic mass media that articles containing brutality, violence and similar articles are among the top news for many days. Is it a normal phenomenon or not? If no, what can we do to more or less normalize the field? Generally, the field is open for discussions. It is still in question whom we will invite to the hearings.”
In response to our observation whether the situation in this respect had become so tense that they wanted to solve the issue at the National Assembly level or they attempted to prevent the situation from becoming more tense, A. Davtyan said the following, “One of the initiators of the proposal is Margarit Yesayan who raised that issue and also expressed her concern. Therefore, we decided to take the path of hearings. As for what motives and concerns there are, let us be patient, let us hold those hearings in mid-November and follow what conclusion we will draw.”
At the end of the conversation, we inquired of Mr. Davtyan whether the MP had a favorite program in the Armenian information field and what program made him nervous. He avoided giving any concrete answer about the Armenian programs; he just noted that there were several programs that made him nervous. Then he confided to us that among his favorite programs were the programs of Discovery and National Geographic Channels.
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Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
