On September 22, the Media Dialogue team visited the largest higher education institution in Armenia — Yerevan State University (YSU). Founded on May 16, 1919, by the government of the Republic of Armenia, YSU is the country’s oldest and largest public university, often referred to as Armenia’s “mother university.” Today, it has 17 faculties covering the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, as well as a preparatory department for international students. YSU is also a hub for research, with multiple centers and laboratories, active participation in international cooperation projects such as Erasmus+, and publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science.
Among the representatives of YSU at the meeting was Naghash Martirosyan, Dean of the Faculty of Journalism. He recalled that the Faculty of Journalism was established 26 years ago, having originally been part of the Faculty of Philology. Its development into a separate faculty took about ten years, during which it drew from European and American traditions, ultimately shaping the Armenian School of Journalism.
During the exchange, Yurii Bondar, Director of the Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, presented the institute’s departments and their adaptation to the new realities of the media industry. In particular, he highlighted the Department of Online Media, which trains specialists for digital and emerging media platforms.
Dean Martirosyan expressed interest in how the Ukrainian institute balances the preservation of classical journalism traditions with adaptation to the digital environment, where short-form content and social media increasingly dominate. In response, Yurii Bondar emphasized that the Institute combines classical methods with innovative approaches, and he invited his Armenian colleague to the “Journalism Spring” in 2027, an event marking the 80th anniversary of the Faculty of Journalism at KNU, to see the level of student training firsthand and share Armenia’s experience in building a system of media education.
The two sides also discussed the possibility of launching joint training programs, enabling Ukrainian and Armenian students and faculty to exchange knowledge and strengthen inter-university cooperation.
