Media Landscape - Armenia

The most recent history of Armenia needs to be quickly recapitulated as it provides the framework to understanding the state of the media. In 1992 a war started in the Karabakh region, the Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. Armenia supported the Karabakhi people in their self-determination movement and became a party in the conflict. In response Azerbaijan blockaded the only operating transport connection between Armenia and the rest of the world. Turkey joined Azerbaijan in closing its borders from the west. Land locked, Armenia had to rely only on its other two neighbours, Georgia and Iran, with whom it did not have any transport infrastructures. In addition, environmentalists closed the only major energy resource of Armenia, the nuclear station. Moreover, most of the factories stopped due to the collapse of the over-integrated structure of soviet industry.

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