“Women’s month” is officially over! “Media Advocate” initiative congratulates women once again.
During this period, we focused on female politicians and not only. The first three ladies (the RA President’s, the NA President’s and the Prime Minister’s wives), female NA members and NGO sector representatives were in the spotlight of our initiative.
34 leading online news agencies with 1861 articles were monitored. The total number of articles on female politicians compared to the ones with male politicians, is smaller. It should be noted that, during the same period, more than 16.000 articles were published including the names of male politicians.
Thus, 117 of the 1861 articles presented the activity of Mrs. Nune Sargsyan. Nune Sargsyan has a positive reputation both in the public and media. The figures also prove it. 11 articles out of 117, are positive and 106 are neutral.
The discussion on the wife of RA National Assembly Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan, was held on the social networks rather than in media or news outlets. 39 articles presented Gohar Abajian’s activity. If one could find records on the social networks supporting Gohar Abajian, there were not any in the news outlets. As a result, 26 of the articles are neutral and 13 are negative.
The wife of RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Anna Hakobyan, is engaged in active civic activity which in its turn is reflected in the news outlets. 640 articles were published, 184 of which are negative, 124 are positive, and 332 are neutral. Positive and negative articles are almost equal, and this proves that Anna Hakobyan has both confirmed supporters and critics at the same time.
RA NA Vice Speaker Lena Nazaryan was in our spotlight. 326 articles presented Lena Nazaryan’s activity. 46 of which are negative, 10 are positive, and 269 are neutral. It is noteworthy that, unlike the male politicians who lose their positive reputation due to their wives, Lena Nazarian is criticized because of her husband, Narek Babayan’s activity.
The member of the National Assembly, Naira Zohrabyan is one of the most experienced female politicians. Articles, including her name, were mainly neutral till 5th of April. After the incident at the National Assembly with the transgender woman Lilit Martirosyan, the number of articles on her, both with positive and negative connotation, has increased. 35 articles out of 643, are negative, 33 are positive, and 575 are neutral.
Recently, we also focused on the transgender woman Lilit Martirosyan. She became popular after her speech at the National Assembly. During last three days, 96 articles were written about her. LGBT community members undertook a campaign against Naira Zohrabyan and as a result, 20 positive articles were written. The number of negative articles was equal to the number of positive articles on Naira Zohrabyan, that is to say, 33 articles were marked as negative and at last 43 of the articles were neutral.
The “Media Advocate” initiative will continue to follow female politicians during the upcoming months.
