RELIGION & COMMUNICATION
Year:2011 | Volume:18 | Issue:1 (39)|Papers Count:7

The normative view of the media is the resultant of a group of do’s and don’ts in various institutions interacting with the media. The relation of the media with any of these institutions, the conditions surrounding the media, the philosophical foundations of the media and the religious values, principles and instructions are among the formation grounds for normative theories in regard to the mass media. The social responsibility theory is an example of this kind which seeks to modify individual freedom and create a link between the media independence and their social responsibilities. In other words, the social responsibility theory was formulated in a liberalist and humanist process and added the social responsibility dimension to the doctrine of individual freedom and media independence.One of the areas of discussion in the field of humanities and social philosophy is the relation between the individual and society. The socialist view gives priority to the society, whereas the individualistic view is mostly tended to individual rights. Thus humans are reduced to their instinctive drives. Contrariwise, the Islamic logic takes a more sublimated stance towards man and considers his worldly and transcendental dimensions simultaneously. The social responsibility that ensues from this Islamic stance brings into prominence an obligation known as enjoining virtues and forbidding vices. That is why this article provides a comparative explanation of the social responsibility status from Western and Islamic viewpoints.

One of the best ways to understand a phenomenon is to employ metaphors which could explain it through its similarities with another phenomenon. Management experts have done the same by bringing several metaphors such as comparing an organization to a machine, living thing, culture, painting canvas, etc. This article has used "Media" as a metaphor of organization, but it emphasizes the obligation associated with both the media and organization vis - a - vis the society. But a metaphorical outlook has also its harm which should not be neglected, and that is when we say "this is it" and forget other things, disregarding the fact that to understand a phenomenon, both a generalized and detailed look are necessary. Therefore, a combination of metaphors will always be more helpful in understanding a phenomenon such as an organization.

The article deals with influencing factors of students' participation in campus congregation prayer. Out of 1400 students, 300 were selected as subjects of the study, and were asked to answer questionnaires, the result of which is as follows:There is a direct link between the staff participation, how to pray instruction, and students' participation.There is a close link between the place, time and physical surrounding of performing the ritual and students' participation.There is a direct link between the status of Imam (prayer leader) as a cleric and encouraging students to participate.

There is no such thing as impartiality in the theories of social sciences and humanities. We can recognize their metatheories by studying various pretheoretical bases they are founded on. By metatheory we mean a corpus that consists of metatheoretical constituents, or pretheoretical presuppositions. Metatheoretical presuppositions are often hidden and become manifest through metathorizing and studying theories that in turn will lead to a second - hand knowledge. According to metatheoreticians, metatheoretical presuppositions are of different kinds: metaphysical, cosmological, logical, ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological, praxiological, aetiological, ethical, and aesthetic. Metatheoricians also mention some principal metatheories due to the existing differences among theorists in regard to the above-mentioned presuppositions or the prominent philosophical schools. These are: positivistic, postmodernist, critical realist, and hermeneutic presuppositions; and critical presuppositions.Each metatheory has its own method of metatheorization; i.e its own stance towards how to discover or formulate metatheories. In this article, metatheorization is discussed as a path towards religious theories in social sciences and humanities through discovering Islamic metatheories.

There is a close link between "time" and "changes". Thus, two simultaneous events may undergo different processes due to different historical and cultural circumstances. The development process in Japan and Iran is one example. The two countries' confrontation with the west in 19th century is generally considered to be the beginning of their development and modernization. But Japan actually entered this phase after a relatively short period of a decade from the time it accepted the Tariff Trade conditions in 1858, the presence of the U.S. navy and until the establishment of a modern state following the return of Meiji (1868).A survey of the chronicles and other literature that illustrate the conditions of Qajar era sheds light over the social behavior of the time and the absence of the vital elements necessary for development, thought this kind of behavior may be rooted in more distant past.It could be concluded that despite the start of transition from a traditional society to the modern time as a result of confrontation with the west, success in treading this path was mostly due to the existing circumstances that had paved the way for this strenuous goal. The institutionalization of such traits as accountability for the assumed duties and the assigned social roles in a country like Japan, facilitated the move forward in the path of modernization.

This article intends to bring into focus the television's production system as one of the three elements subject to analysis next to the content and the audience with the aim of shedding light on the policies and approaches to producing religious programs. The method adopted is a qualitative one that has included both the examination of the organization's documents and interviews with those involved in producing religious programs. We can deduce from the overall analysis that definitions, objectives, principles, policies and approaches all require a revision. Other factors such as the audience, creativity, production economy, research and production and in general the production process are also discussed.

Administrative corruption is a challenging issue that has necessitated some preventive social and disciplinary measures. In fact, preventive approaches can reduce social, political and economic costs and negative consequences. Among these, culture can play a significant and effective role in boosting administrative integrity. This research has been done to examine the role of administrative culture in reducing administrative corruption by considering the cultural indexes of current values, the administrative cultural structure and human resources' culture.The research is, as it concerns its objective, of an applied type, and qualitatively and methodically a descriptive one which has used a survey analysis. The statistical society is the state and public administrations of Tehran with a total of 697 statistical sampling.The results show that in both state and public administrations, the administrative culture has been effective in boosting administrative integrity. Among the factors, tales and administrative patterns have acted as the strongest, and traditional values have acted as the weakest cultural causes of reducing administrative corruption. The public administrations' personnel have considered the element of administrative culture to be more effective in reducing corruption as compared with state administrative personnel.No meaningful relation has been observed between male and female views or their educational background and the attitudes adopted towards how to reduce administrative corruption. The article finally proposes some cultural guidelines such as emphasizing moral and traditional values and shared management to solve the problem.