“I believe that we need to develop a better strategy in the fight against misinformation,” the vice president of the Center for Policy Studies, Armen Grigoryan, said during the Anti-Western and Anti-Liberal Sentiments in the Caucasus in 2021: Inside the Propaganda Kitchen panel.
According to him, fixing the media sector and overall Internet in Armenia will not be resolved by arresting one or several people. He said, “We need to have an essential strategy, and for that, we need to develop better strategies for communication and conduct activities with civil society. The issue is that the Armenian government is somewhat isolated because the majority of civil society became estranged from the government as a result of poor communication. That took place during the war and during other time periods due to the delay in making important changes such as vetting and changes in the court system. At the moment, the government does not trust this portion of civil society, and it will try to use its propaganda tools in the fight against misinformation, which is not very effective.”
According to him, there are several narratives and stories that come from the 1990s, such as ‘selling Artsakh.’ Right now, people are spreading narratives about the LGBT community and Soros.
When asked about the different anti-liberal stories society will be burdened with in 2021, he said, “Since the West abandoned us, we will encounter the common narrative that Russia will uphold our security. In other words, some confusing narrative is being spread that the West abandoned us, but at the same time, the West is trying to destroy our values.”
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Regarding stories about COVID-19, he said, “Conspiracy theories stopped when the Russians announced that they were the first to have an officially registered vaccine. After that, there was a large decrease in conspiracy theories. But the main claim will be that only Russia can and has the ability to save us. They are the only ones who can give us a vaccine. The campaign against these vaccines will continue to spread, and there will be psychological attacks against different NGOs.”
Tatev Harutyunyan
