RELIGION & COMMUNICATION
Year:2017 | Volume:23 | Issue:2 (50)|Papers Count:6

The place of religion and how it affects the cultural policy-making process is one of the topics in the field of cultural policy. Various theories have been proposed in this regard at a minimum to a maximum range of views. Cultural policy in an Islamic society, however, follows a specific pattern. What distinguishes this pattern from similar ones is the prominent role of religion in forming the culture of a society; this role is beyond only setting forbidden lines and codes in formulating cultural policy. This article introduces three elements of cultural policy based on a descriptive analytical method and by referring to Quranic verses and traditions especially the life of Prophet Mohammad. These include: solving cultural complications of the society, preventing the rise of these complications and developing society toward perfection. This article emphasizes the smartness of the Islamic system and focuses on the elimination of these complicated issues rather than solving them. The first step in cultural policy-making, therefore, is to identify progressing factors in a religious society (regardless of whether or not there is any problem in society) and to implement them. Preventing the causes of the problems (which is embodied in religious teachings) is the next step and effort to fix the problem directly is the last step.

The present study is a qualitative survey of the role of TV in transforming senior citizens' social status in the city of Tehran. Interviews were carried out with the statistical population of the research, i.e. senior citizens, each taking more than an hour, the most important results of which have appeared in this article. The basic research question was: What status do Tehrani senior citizens consider for themselves among their families? What role do they think TV plays in this regard? The result obtained from these in-depth interviews with those who were selected with targeted sampling method revealed that as regards their social, economic, and physical status, there have been traces of disappointments with their families; and concerning the cause of this situation, they pointed out the attenuation of religious and cultural values. Few seniors assumed a pivotal status in their families and more of them believed that they were missing the kind of respect they deserved and were mostly treated as marginal. Moreover, the seniors whose surrounding family members were too much busy with watching satellite programs thought to be neglected by their children. TV itself has shown a weak performance in producing programs for elevating senior citizens' status. Sending seniors to nursing homes is also the result of children's ingratitude and their economic problems. In their responses, the seniors also referred to the necessity of respecting their dignity, providing media programs for their training and education, supporting them financially, and providing amusement and health facilities for them.

After studying the speeches of Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supereme Leader of Islamic Republic of Iran, about the urgancy of using Jihadi management within all fields, the researcher of the presesnt study decided to find a way in order to achive the pioneer media of islamic revolution. Therefore, he tended to create a bilateral relation between madia management and Jihadi management. In the present study, the researcher adopted ranking delphi as research method. Ranking delphi also is clssified within three interrelated and sucsessive phases: brain storming (to achive maximal indicators), narrowing down (to acieve the most important indicators), and ranking (to prioritize the most important indicators). First of all, the characteristics (134 characteristics) of Jihadi media manger identified in interviewing of 21 elites as: media managers, and management and communications professors at the first phase of delphi method. With the most important indecators and characteristics identified in the second phase of delphi method (two rounds) by questionnaire in 3 categories of pentamerous, theire prioritization was carried out in the third phase (two rounds). A questionnaire was used to ranking and by Kendall W coefficient, the consensus of the participants in the panel were measured. The result obtained from ranking delphi method were categorised into three types of characteristics: creativity, qualification and selectiveness, decipline, high motivation, and braveness as the general characteristics; media pioty, having political and cultural insight, being aware of media and its paraphernalia, exploration for the golden point of audiences’ tastes, needs and goodness, and having skills of influencig audience as the media characteristics; and finally, believ in media jihad, insightfulness, God-obidientness, vilayah-centeredness, and sincerity as the jhadi characteristics of media manager.

The issue of the emergence or collapse of phenomena such as civilization, culture and even society is of interest for the scholars of social sciences. Referring to the possibility of creation or collapse of social phenomena, some of the theories that seek to explain the processes of social change divide it into two creation and collapse demarcations. The theory of "Life Cycle" which is based on the above-mentioned framework explains the changes in phenomena. The actual existence of society and culture is verifiable by relying on Islamic philosophy. Therefore, creation and collapse of cultures and communities is confirmed both by philosophical logic and the references in the Quran. Because of this confirmation and relying on philosophical explanations and Quranic teachings, the factors and components effective in creation or collapse of societies and cultures can be identified. These factors and components can be classified from different aspects. One of the major classifications in this regard is dividing the factors effective in the survival and annihilation of cultures and societies into two categories: “components related to semantic systems (the intrinsic and noumenal properties of cultures)" and "components related to the people of one culture”. Under these two general branches, other various items can be categorized. The philosophical-theoretical framework for explaining the above-mentioned issues requires using the analogicaldemonstrative method.

Today, people are on the one hand under the impact of their respective societies' religious culture, and on the other exposed to the modern world's structural components. A survey of transformations occurred in society and their impact on religiosity can illustrate both theachievements and failures of the existing programs in the field of religious issues. This study was done with the aim of assessing the relationship between religiosity and the degree of people's participation in charitable social networks. The method adopted was a survey of the statistical population of 18-year-old and above inhabitants of Tehran'smunicipal Division 14. These were selected according to one-stage cluster design in random. Due to extensive theories in the sociology of religion, a compilation of the views of Weber, Inglehart, Berger and Lukman was used for explaining the issue and a standard questionnaire was also adopted for collecting the data. Data analysis was done according to statistical tests. The religiosity variable was examined in four different ritual, experimental, consequential and ideologicaldimensions; and the groundwork variables were considered from thepoint of view of age, education, and marital status. The research resultsindicate a correlation with a high percentage of probability between independent variables and the degree of people's membership in charitable social networks.

Transcendental Cinema is one of the sublime genres of the seventh art that had a brilliant presence in the 80s in Iran and aimed to provide a dramatic representation of the invisible world with an educative approach. This innovative genre has, however, disappeared from the current TV programs as a result of non-technical and at times suppressive criticisms. Moreover, the genre has always faced theoretical and technical challenges as much as it has had culturaleducational importance. One of the challenges is its comprising a structured semiotic system. Visual signs of transcendental TV serials must contain powerful means for creating meaning and one aspect of this is their capacity to adapt with Islamic instructions. The present study has adopted a semiotic analysis for investigating the case of representing angels in the serial Malakut by comparing it to the Islamic doctrine of angelology. To do this we have first compiled the required angelology instructions from the Islamic culture with an emphasis on the Holy Quran and Shias' commentators. Then by using a semiotic analysis based on two patterns, namely Aslyn TV code analysis and the simultaneous analysis pattern of Saussure- Straus, we have surveyed signifiers that create meaning in the serial. Some of the salient points derived from this survey are: providing semiotic bases of representing angels and the invisible world in the cinema according to Islamic principles of angelology, criticism of representing angels in two domains i.e. TV codification (in regard to make-up, characterization, visual elements of the scene, …); and semiotic criticism of substitution (contrasting the abstract existence of angels with matter and their guidance after being deviated by Satan…) ; resolving the conflict between the beautiful and ugly embodiment of angels and also defending the adaptation of angel's crying with religious principles as a meaningful and powerful symbol in the media production.