Unfortunately, I thought we had this shortage in Armenia, like cultural journalism, but during our international activities, while visiting our partners from other countries, we noticed that this challenge exsists everywhere. I would like to highlight that the cultural journalism is very important section in journalism and needs to be developed everywhere, says Mkrtich Tonoyan,  the cultural manager and director of Akos Cultural NGO, based in Yerevan, Armenia in an interview for CIVIL Media, during the one week seminar “Resilient Journalism, Countering Disinformation and Propaganda” held in Skopje by CIVIL in cooperation with youth4media in December 2022.

“ Why I started with this… Because, to unfold a question as what is the contribution of arts towards propaganda, in a bad or a good way, is that the cultural journalism can do better research and to tell the wider circle of readers how it goes.  Because there are a lot of confusing sites. For instance, when we see some of the propaganda sites using art, we think that those art pieces were created by that propaganda. But it isn’t like that. There is independent art works, and later taken and used for propaganda.”

Tonoyan also addresses the role of art in propaganda in ancient times, and the use of it in service of the rulers.

“At the beginning, if we go to the ancient times, art itself, as a separate discipline, we can say that it didn’t exist like that. It was always a tool for power, so kings would glorify their victories and mainly used in their monumental architecture as a storytelling. And we have this as an archeological artefacts and as a survived art pieces.

Now, the propagandists are looking for a new expression, like visual art, doing an impact on the audience. The tasks and problems that the art solves sometimes can be seen like when it is borrowed from the propagandists and used for propaganda. This can cause a misunderstanding, to make us think that it is actually arts contribution to the propaganda tool. For example, in communism and socialism, art was with a political purpose, stressed Tonoyan.

Diana Tahiri

Camera: Samuel Debus

Editor: Samuel Debus/ Arian Mehmeti

The interview is part of the project “Resilient journalism in countering disinformation and propaganda”, which is implemented by the Macedonian organization CIVIL in partnership with Youth4Media from Germany, with the support of the Government of North Rhine-Westphalia.