OC Media

OC Media

Analysis | Heard but not seen: how women became the unrecognised architects of the Velvet Revolution

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(Mari Nikuradze/OC Media)

Anna Bianca Roach is a graduate of conflict studies and a women’s rights-focused jour­nal­ist based in Yerevan, Armenia. See more on her website.

The rev­o­lu­tion that led to the downfall of Armenia’s Repub­li­can Party heavily relied on the roles women have tra­di­tion­al­ly taken in social movements. Until now, they haven’t been recog­nised; but the rev­o­lu­tion might be changing that. [Read more…]

Opinion | Queer women in the North Caucasus — doubly powerless

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Ekaterina Petrova is a psy­chol­o­gist and queer rights activist born in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. She has led several projects for the Russian LGBT Network.

Today is the Inter­na­tion­al Day Against Homo­pho­bia, Trans­pho­bia, and Biphobia. Today queer people become visible. Some of these people who belong to more than one invisible group, who you have probably not seen or heard about, are queer women in the North Caucasus — a group who des­per­ate­ly need more vis­i­bil­i­ty. [Read more…]

Fiery revolutionary or pragmatic politician: what to expect from Nikol Pashinyan

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Nikol Pashinyan (Mari Nikuradze /OC Media)

Mikayel Zolyan is a historian and political analyst from Yerevan, Armenia. He teaches at the Brusov Uni­ver­si­ty of Languages and Social Sciences.

Drawing inspi­ra­tion from the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Armenia’s oppo­si­tion leader Nikol Pashinyan is being vague about the details of his political agenda not to alienate his newly found lot of sup­port­ers.

[Read more…]

Analysis | Dissatisfaction with government and support for protests increased during Sargsyan’s rule

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Rally in Yerevan on 16 April (Knar Khudoyan /OC Media)

CRRC examines how data showed increas­ing levels of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the gov­ern­ment and increased support for protests in the run-up to Armenia’s ‘Velvet Rev­o­lu­tion’. [Read more…]

Analysis | Ten years after a deadly crackdown in Armenia, will history repeat itself?

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France Square, 18 April (Mari Nikuradze/ OC Media)

Peter Liakhov is a freelance jour­nal­ist and filmmaker based in Yerevan.

In a meeting with oppo­si­tion leader Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday, embattled Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan raised the spectre of 1 March 2008 — when police violently broke up protests leading to the deaths of 10 people. Ten years have passed since then, and the Armenia Sargsyan now stands before, the protests he now faces, are something entirely different. [Read more…]

As thousands rally for a ‘Velvet Revolution’ — Serzh Sargsyan is not yet relinquishing his grasp on power

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Rally in Yerevan on 16 April (Knar Khudoyan /OC Media)

Knar Khudoyan is a Yerevan-based jour­nal­ist for news site Epress.am.

As protests in Yerevan continue unabated, Serzh Sargsyan’s grip on power seems as tight now as ever before. Whatever their outcome, one thing seems clear, dis­con­tent against his rule has become more pro­nounced than ever before.

[Read more…]

Analysis | Women are significantly less likely to go out to eat in Georgia

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(Mari Nikuradze /OC Media)

Busy restau­rants and cafes are a common sight in Georgia, and CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer data suggest that restau­rants and cafés have become busier over the last five years. While 27% of Georgia’s pop­u­la­tion reported going to a restau­rant in 2012, five years later, 50% did. There is an upward trend for both men and women, yet the data also suggests there is a sig­nif­i­cant gender gap. Taking into account other social and demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics, women are sig­nif­i­cant­ly less likely to go to restau­rants than men. [Read more…]

Opinion | Armenia’s female councillors were abused for challenging the patriarchal political system

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Marina Khacha­tryan during the incident at the Yerevan City Hall (Screen­shot /Azatutyun)

Anna Nikoghosyan is coor­di­na­tor at the Coalition to Stop Violence against Women, founder of Fem­Li­brary Armenia, and chairs the board at FRIDA — the Young Feminist Fund.

On 13 February, female coun­cil­lors from Armenia’s women-led oppo­si­tion party Yerkir Tsirani were attacked, phys­i­cal­ly and sexually, during a Yerevan City Council session. The women were later blamed for the attack, and for ‘inap­pro­pri­ate behaviour’ in the council. While the women politi­cians’ actions were met with hostility from some, they have also sparked public resis­tance against gendered violence, and against the patri­ar­chal political system that per­pet­u­ates it. [Read more…]

Analysis | Polarisation in Georgia’s media landscape

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(Mari Nikuradze /OC Media)

One of the outcomes of the stark polar­i­sa­tion of news media globally is that people tend to align to the media outlets which resonate most with their ide­o­log­i­cal beliefs. In most cases, con­sump­tion of a par­tic­u­lar ide­o­log­i­cal media source can only reinforce one’s beliefs, which might lead to an even further polar­i­sa­tion of the audience. These patterns can be char­ac­ter­is­tic of mass media in contexts as different as, for instance, the United States and Lebanon. As the data from the December 2017 CRRC/NDI survey shows, people in Georgia also appear to place more trust in media that aligns with their political beliefs. [Read more…]

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