چكيده لاتين :
Introduction
Social capital and its major components and dimensions are related to the social values, norms, institutions, and performances of activists and its improvement depends on factors that can lead to the development and expansion of social trust, participation, and unity. The development and spread of social perspectives, values, and norms can create social constructs that lead to social capital and in that way cause the improvement and development in any society. One of these ways is the mass media and how to make use of them. Some scholars believe that together with the spread of communication technologies and their use in Iran, the awareness and general knowledge of the youth has increased rapidly and has led to a cultural development and consequently to the increase of the social capital. Some others have pointed to the reduction of social interactions among the youth and the flow of information in a society being one-way and consider them as the cause of reduction in the social unity within any society. Some sociologists consider mass media as the cause of a permanent social trust (Coleman, 1999). Others believe that it is a tool to dominate masses culturally through turning it into a cultural industry (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2002; Ritzer, 1996). Horkheimer and Adorno in their article titled, “Culture Industry” argue that, “Nowadays, culture influences everything. The TV, cinema, and publications have established a system that is unified, exactly like a whole. Obviously, culture has been turned into an industry and follows the rules of production in the market (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2002). In their view, this industry tries to change the satisfaction of the audience and in this way provide for their needs to have fun and hubbies. In addition, Ritzer considers a culture industry as “logical and bureaucratized constructs” (like television channels) which influence culture (Ritzer, 1996). Robert Putnam has used the concept of social capital in relation to the studies on social communication in the U.S. The main theme of his work on Americans was that after 1960, they have shown a uniform trend towards isolation from the social life. He considers mass media as one of the major reasons for such a phenomenon. The subject of his study was the lack of social capital in the U.S., which is related to the fears, and hopes of many people. His studies have attracted the attention of many experts, policy makers, and even a large number of young people. Putnam considers social capital as good and lack of it as bad and calls for actions to restore societies to health. He believes that the growing number of media technologies especially that of television is the main reason of laziness among Americans. In Putnam’s view, television is the main reason of Americans’ isolation and reduction of social capital through the disconnection of social interactions. He thinks that watching TV has not replaced social interactions and has not led to inner satisfaction among Americans since he believes that those who watch many television programs despise it gradually and enjoy less (Field, 2008). Putnam argues that spending time on social media especially television prevents human beings from thinking about serious social issues. Examples of reduction in the rate of involvement in voluntary activities and helping those in need originates from the excessive attraction of the youth towards television and radio programs and the Internet. It seems that what the media transfer to the youth reflects the point that what image do we have of ourselves a citizen (Field, 2008). James Coleman considers mass media as tools that expand social capital. He believes that mass media are the tools for the identification, continuity, development, maintenance, or transfer of social capitals. The introduction of mass media and their significant development has reduced ambiguities in a society. Coleman says, “Recently, there has been a change in the mass media towards the reduction of trust and the reduction of trust among Americans is an example. On the other hand, in the last few years there has been used some media techniques that has led to the restoration of trusts. The increase and growth in the rate of trust in television news programs shows the growing power of media as a source of information interpretation. Mass media is one of the three major sources of information. They not only produce and interpret information, but also educate people (Coleman, 1999).
Daniel Romer et al. have done a research study entitled, “Building social capital in young people: the role of mass media and life outlook” and analyzed social participation on two aspects of mutual trust and civil participation. They have investigated these two aspects of social capital with the young people’s use of mass media, education, age, socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity, and race (Romer et al, 2009). They concluded that there is a significant relationship between the respondents’ pessimism and fatalism with the rate of media consumption they have. There is a relationship between the hours spent on watching television and hopelessness but there is no relationship between following national news on the TV and people’s hopelessness. Those who choose to watch news programs demonstrate a higher degree of social and civil activities and their civil activities are related to their media consumption and their media consumption is related to their social trust. People’s participation in civil activities causes a reduction in the hours spent on watching television and reading books leads to a higher confidence and trust among the youth. Young people who have a lot of social activities use a higher rate of the Internet and news on national television to heighten their information and knowledge (Romer et al, 2009).
Material & Methods
Survey research has been used in the current study in order to collect data. The data required for the evaluation of the rate of students’ use of domestic news television channels and the effects of the rate of media consumption and media consumption patterns on their social capital and the variables of that including interpersonal social trust and institutional social trust, social participation, people’s gravitation towards one another, social interaction between people, and the rate of arguments and conflicts between individuals and also the investigation on the relationship between the above variables together with some variables related to the use of mass media such as the urge from them to participate in society and politics and the enlightening effects of media and other underlying variables within the analytical framework of the study underwent statistical analysis. In order to determine the validity of data collection tools, face validity assessment, test-retest method, and established measures has been applied. In order to assess the reliability of the tools being used, Cronbach-Alpha was used. Based on this analysis, the reliability of the questionnaire of subjective social capital was determined as 0.852 and the reliability of the questionnaire of objective social capital was determined as 0.824. The research population consisted of all the students studying in state universities in the city of Tabriz during 2011-2012. The sample of the current research consists of 381 students from the population who have been chosen based on stratified random sampling method proportional to the volume of each of the classes (the number of students in each major and degree).
Discussion of Results & Conclusions
The testing of the first hypothesis reveals that the ordinary viewers of TV programs do have a higher degree of social capital when compared with the high-consumption group of viewers. The reason for this might be originated from people’s detachment from the realities within a society that are happening in a daily fashion and can be effective in forming one’s thoughts, opinions, and socials activities. The high-consumption viewers loose themselves in the world of visual media and movies and other programs that are unable to demonstrate a whole picture of the realities of a society and because of their limitations are only able to picture a part of social realities that are objective and can be pictures. With regard to satellite channels, since the majority of the viewers watch Persian-language programs and the managers of those channels have their own underlying political aims only portrait a part of realities in Iranian society on various social, cultural, and political aspects that are in line with their own goals, the viewers are integrated into the world that is made up for them and become detached from the realities of their own social environment and alienated from their surrounding society. Those who make use of several media such as the Internet, satellite, and newspapers have a low agreement with news that is broadcasted from domestic television while those who use domestic television and radio agree more with that. The reason for people to watch the programs of satellite TV might be due to a compensatory approach and complementing their information and knowledge in the combination of the programs in domestic TV with the programs of satellite channels. When audiences face the programs of other media, their attitudes and mentality becomes influenced, too. Maybe this is the reason for the lower agreement of the users of the Internet, newspapers, and satellite with the attitudes that are presented on domestic TV on various issues.
