The Internet in the South Caucasus (Internet, Society and Democracy in Georgia by Alexey Sidorenko, Warsaw)

News 20 May 2010

On 14th of April, 2010, Caucasus online digest discussed the problelms of development of freedom to internet in three countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. One of the authors of the publication, Alexey Sidorenko notes that in 2008 use of internet reached 16.5% in Georgia and these indices have been increasing dramatically throughout the yeat. In author's opinion, internet in Georgia is applied for entertainment  instead of using as a the tool for political debates or mobilization. When state expresses its liberal attitude towards internet users, it means that it has levers to limit spreading information, which was quite obvious during August war 2008. 

Azerbaijan has one of the highest index of access to internet. According to the third President, Heydar Aliyev, development of information technologies can be the base for industrialization of the country itself. Government, politcal and civil society organizations try to spread more information about their activities via internet. As for Armenia, despite of the fact, that field of informational technologies is fully politicized, the index of access to internet is on of the lowest in South Caucasian region (6.4%).

Full article: http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/pdfs/CAD-15.pdf  

 

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