"Always Connected Armenia" and the 2026 Elections. Selected Data From The First, Pre-Official Campaign Phase

Selected data from the first, pre-official campaign phase (April 23 - May 7, 2026) of the ""Always Connected Armenia" and the 2026 Elections" research conducted by the Region Research Center is presented here.

During this phase, we studied Armenian-language pre-election content from five media outlets: three Armenian online media outlets, as well as online platforms of Radio Liberty and Sputnik Armenia.

This period differed little, from the perspective of pre-election campaigning, from the previous 1-1.5 months, when the main features of the pre-election process had already begun to emerge, especially on online platforms. These included media advertising videos by political forces, comparisons of various programs, instances of the main competing forces targeting one another with varying degrees of harshness. and an ongoing discourse centered on the questions of "who will align or oppose who" and "what will the elections be about?"

Therefore, all of our statistics related to this stage, including the portion presented here, reflect the clearly defined media styles, professional and political approaches, and other editorial preferences observed in the mentioned media outlets.