Culture-Communication Studies
Year:2015 | Volume:15 | Issue:28 (60)|Papers Count:8

With the development of media, the world has begun to entering a new phase in which media has become one of the main components of human societies in addition to taking steps toward evolution and diversification.The range of audience accessibility to media, using capability and at the same time maintaining independence of mind and thought, avoiding passiveness, enjoying critical thinking, increasing selection ability, selecting to confront this complex and universal process and finally producing communicative messages via media literacy evolution and development has been perceived obtainable.If we assume media literacy as the relationship regulatory science between audience and media based on internalized norms, then we should not neglect its position in countries' media policies. To analyze these policies, several models have been proposed among which EC model is the most comprehensive.The model suggests four components of access, use, critical understanding and relational production in the field of media literacy. In the present research, documents of Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution Organization have been analyzed as the most important policy# maker organ in the Islamic Republic.The research results indicate that a great deal of attention in documents has been paid to use and access components and little attention has been paid to critical understanding and communicative ability components. The interesting point in the documents is using terms such as electronic literacy, information literacy, and digital literacy and not using media literacy.

This research aims to "study the role of weblogs in development of sociopolitical awareness of the postgraduate students of communication sciences. To investigate and collecting data, survey method and questionnaire have been employed respectively. After completing the questionnaires, the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential tables in SPSS program. The statistical population of this research includes 140 postgraduate students of communication sciences admitted to universities in the academic year 2011-2012. Because of the low number of the members of the statistical population, census-sampling method has been applied, and after reducing those who were not available to participate in the research, 124 questionnaires were filled.According to the findings of the research, the most respondents spend less than one hour per day referring to weblogs so that they can read news, being informed of social and political events. Findings show that these respondents use the news of weblogs about 3 to 6 years, and are familiar with famous weblogs to some extent. The most respondents also know how to work with weblogs. For obtaining more and valid information about a celebrity or famous person, they refer to websites and social networks. They believe that although they have a broad access to the internet, they do not spent much time for reading weblogs. In their opinion, the filtering of websites has a role in their access to the internet. Most respondents have trust in the content of the weblogs in some extent, and they just rely to some extent on the news they obtained from the weblogs for quoting from such news. so they do not use the content of the weblogs for their decisionmakings.they think that weblogs are not valid resources for collecting information about the details of events and news. Most respondents believe in weblogs’ content to some extent and so they wouldn’t present to the others what they have gained from weblogs. They believe that weblogs have play a role in their awareness about the most significant political events of their time, the most important political decisions made in the contemporary era, political terms and concepts, political organizations, institutions, parties, prominent politicians, who played a decisive role in the contemporary political changes of the contemporary era. In addition, the political orientation of the media and their major proponents, the concepts of political development, political schools and models, the issues hidden behind political events, the ability to analyze political news and events properly, social damages and abnormalities, social changes, the conditions of the different social classes, as well as the social trends have no significant role in such awareness.

This study was conducted with the aim of testing the technology acceptance model and the impact of Hofstede cultural values (masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, and power distance) on Internet technology acceptance among the students at the University of Allameh Tabatabai using the structural equation modeling approach. among these students, 275 were sampled, using random categorical sampling method. Research results suggested that masculinity/femininity cultural values have a positive impact on variables of the technology acceptance model (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use). The effect of uncertainty avoidance on these variables was also negative. The impact of power distance on perceived usefulness was also negative and significant. Fitting indices of the model indicated that the theoretical model put forward befit the data collected. Research results and implications were discussed too.

There are many disagreements among elites about development pattern modeling in Islamic republic of Iran. One of these disagreements is basis of development pattern modeling of communication system and cyberspace in general and disagreements such as modeling principles of domestic social networks in particular.This research deals with the question that whether or not the cyberspace, internet, social media and social networks can be policymaking, manage and planning development on basis of culture and identity of each country. If so, what set of principles should govern the process.The mainstream materialistic approaches of Iranian researchers consider culture to be a dependent variable against independent variables such as technology. So look for type and depths of cyberspace, media and social networks effects on our culture and identity. Unlike that approach, we used Q method to investigate the mindset of experts, managers, policymakers and active users of the cyberspace regarding the role that culture and identity might play in the formation of domestic social networks.Analyzing the questionnaires returned by influential activists of the cyberspace, we found five primary mindsets regarding the aforementioned issue, dimensions of which are briefly elaborated.Finally, based on our understanding of the investigated mindsets and their interrelationships, a few operational suggestions are recommended to policymakers in this field.

Nowadays the new media is one of the most influential and Most Contacted media among youth. Overusing this type of media would make many problems for young people. One of these problems is media addiction.In this regard, this research aims to study the addiction to Computer games and Strategies for coping with it among high school students in East Azerbaijan. The research survey was conducted among 700 high school students from East Azerbaijan Province. The samples were selected by stratified sampling with simple random or systematic. The data collection tool was questionnaire and data were analyzed by SPSS 21 and LISREL 8.5.The results indicate that the prevalence of addiction to computer games were at medium to high (50/5 percent). Also, the family, social capital and mental health status of students are factors that enable students in dealing with addiction to computer games and In contrast other factors, such as leisure, relative deprivation and the number of friends especially friends outside of school reinforce the addiction to computer games among students.

This study sought to explore the effect of soft war on university students’ cultural identity. To this end, the participants of the study were 335 undergraduate university students of Behbahan. A questionnaire (author and year) was used to collect the data in the current investigation. Descriptive and inferential statistics (i.e. t-tests) were used to analyze the data. Findings showed that the majority of students’ identities (i.e. cultural, religious, and national) who were under the influence of soft war, were greatly affected by this position. Moreover, they adhered strictly to the enemy’s cultural propaganda comparing to those students who were less exposed to soft war.However, the results indicated that in the present condition, students are still committed to Iranian-Islamic cultural identity.

The importance of communication in the political dimension has increased, As societies become more complex and developed. Virtual social networks have engendered fundamental changes in the nature and form of political behaviors in different societies and have important roles in individuals’ political trust and participation. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of using Facebook social network on the political trust and participation of the youth in Tabriz City. The present study was conducted employing a survey study and using a researcher-made questionnaire distributed among 600 young people aged 18 to 30 years old of Tabriz consisting of the sample size in 2013. The sampling method was multistage cluster sampling method.The results of the present study indicate that there is a significant correlation of the duration of membership in Facebook, the degree and type of using Facebook with political trust and participation. Using Facebook for getting news and information results in reinforcing conventional political trust and participation among citizens, but using it for entertainment and recreation, making friendship, constructing groups and participating in group discussions result in reinforcing unconventional political participation.

Leisure time activity is another arena that has been added to human life in current world. Variation in economic capital generates different tastes and preferences in spending leisure time. The purpose of this study is to identify the extent of leisure time, the relationship between ways of spending leisure time by students and the economic capital of their families and a comparative study of leisure time activities in two universities. The approach of the study is descriptive comparative and research methodology is survey.Statistical population consists of students from university of Tehran and Azad Islamic university North Tehran branch in the year 2010. The Cochran formula is applied and the sample size is equal to 804 divided equally between the two universities. Sampling methodology is disproportionate stratified random sampling and universities and departments are considered as strata and the share of each department in the sample is disproportionate to statistical population. Types of leisure time activities are divided in to five groups: intellectual, social, entertaining, artistic and cultural, and physical activities. The results indicate that economic capital of families between two universities are not different significantly. The students of Tehran university have fulfilled their leisure time with intellectual activities while the students of Islamic Azad university fulfilled their time with entertaining activities.Students leisure activities have significant relationship with economic capital in Tehran university excluding physical activities and cultural-artistic, social, intellectual and entertainment have respectively a stronger relationship with economic capital respectively. The extent of time devoted to physical activity is the most and the extent of time devoted to cultural-artistic activities is the least. The relationship between types of leisure activities and economic capital is significant in Islamic Azad university excluding intellectual activities such that social, entertainment and cultural artisticn activities have respectively a stronger relationship with economic capital respectively. The extent of time devoted to entertaining activity is the most and the extent of time devoted to cultural-artistic activities is the least.