فصلنامه علوم اجتماعی
سال نوزدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 58، پاییز 1391)

The present paper focuses on development of tourism in Islamic countries, especially Islamic Republic of Iran. The tourism industry has been known as one of the important sectors in economy in all countries including Islamic ones. All governments try to make policies and plans in a way that they could utilize the resources of their country for attraction of tourists. This way, while they gain remarkable economic profits, they connect with people around the world and introduce their culture and society to them. On the other hand, development of tourism industry is mixed with negative socio-cultural effects, which need to be identified depending on sensitivities and thoughts of the main policymakers of a country. Such effects should be eliminated or reduced by making correct decisions. Islamic countries have special particulars and conditions, among which Islamic Republic of Iran is considered as a unique case in terms of attitude of the main policymakers.Despite its large capacity for attraction of foreign tourists, Iran faces religious and political restrictions and obstacles, which have a major effect on the potential tourists’ choice of destination. This proves the need for a special planning and domestication of development of this industry in Iran. Nonetheless, things are different when it comes to development of domestic tourism, as such tourists do not face the said limitations considering the consistency of Islamic rules and regulations in Iran.The existing unique conditions of development of tourism in Iran present a special and serious challenge to planners in the field of tourism. In order to plan for utilization of Iran’s capacity and important and suitable resources for tourism, the planners should take into account all effective socio-cultural, religious, and political aspects in the country and present plans by observing different viewpoints held by influential figures. There have been attempts in this regard in the past years, one of which was establishment of segregated beach resorts in the North. At any rate, such plans were mainly used by domestic tourists. It goes without saying that Muslim tourists from neighboring and regional countries can also use the said plans if they are encouraged to travel to Iran.

Addiction to drugs, a social issue resulting from a deviant behavior, has had an unprecedented growth and is considered as a multifaceted phenomenon. There are different reasons for people’s tendency towards addiction. Weakness of attitude is one of the main causes leading people to drug abuse. The present study aims at identifying the factors affecting attitude of the youth (aged between 18 and 29) about addictive substances and preventing them from tending towards drug abuse. In this applied research, documentary and survey methods are used.In line with this, taking into consideration a framework combining theories of Zajonc, Bandura, Jesser, Kretch& Crutchfield & Ballachey, Oetting & Beauvaiseand Fisbbein&Ajzen, seven hypotheses are determined to identify factors forming attitude of the population in question. Accordingly, using an appropriately designed questionnaire, 400 youngstersaged between 18 and 29 based in Tehran are tested via multiphase cluster sampling and based on categorization of Tehran into 5 areas. The data are analyzed by Regression Analysis, Pearson and Non-parametric Tests and KruskalWallis analysis.According to the research hypotheses and based on the results, it can be concluded that factors such as family`s financial ability, how the family treats addictive substances, how friends treatdrugs, drug abuse by family members and friendsall contribute to formation of the youth’s attitude towards drug, and the individual`s dependence on friends does not have any effect ontheir attitude. Also, according to the results achieved through Regression Analysis,friends have more influence than family when it comes to formation of attitude towards narcotic substances. At the end,the results, whichindicate that compared with friends, family is weak in forming the youth’s attitude,lay stress on the fact that designing preventive programs to increasethe abilities of families and improve the relation between families and friends is quite essential.

The present paper deals with the degree of difference of governance quality. Accordingly, the research question is as follows: how is the difference between countries’ quality of governance explained? According to the theoretical framework used to answer the research question, a combination of the government’s economic resources, social trust and civil participation are among the factors determining the quality of governance. In this comparative interstate research, the unit of analysis is countries which are separated in terms of the difference in quality of governance. Quantitative methods are not used in the sampling process, as attempts are made to count all cases and investigate the ones which have the data necessary for comparison. The fuzzy method is used to analyze the data.The experimental findings with regard to the fuzzy relation between the sets of data indicate that social trust and government’s earned income (other than the economicrent) are almost always the necessary conditions for good governance. Civil participation too has the same effect. The results of analyzing the said combination show that combination of the government’s earned income (other than the economic rent) with high civil participation and social trust are always essential for good governance to take place. The above mentioned combination gained the experimental support of 87% of the units of analysis. Only 13% of them confirmed the inconsistency of this combination with good governance. The said combination is of great experimental significance, as it has the most specificity with a covering index of 0.75 in good governance. It can be said that 75% of the variance of governance quality is explained by combination of the three factors mentioned above.

Technology, whichwas first made to meet the needs of human beings, gradually found novel functions in combination with other social and cultural needs.As a part of technological discourse seen in all societies nowadays, car developed new patterns of use once it was imported to Iran and now is in great demand as a highly favored aspect of popular culture among youngsters. By using an exploratory and analytic description of inherent and reconstructed meanings of car, this research aims at discovering the denotations, functions, and malfunctions of using personal cars among the youth in Tehran. Due to the nature of this subject which lacks any theory, and in order to discover the deeper mental layers, the grounded theory is chosen among qualitative methods of research in this paper. After examining the theories related to car culture, “various motivations, meanings, and functions of using car” along with causal, basic, and mediator conditions, action strategies and consequences affecting it are identified. Though car is considered as a neutral form of technology, the data of this research indicate that it has a socio-cultural connotation.

The present research, which aims at examining the coverage of news about Islamic countries and the world in TV networks, is conducted by applying the agenda setting theory (social deviation salience) presented by Shoemaker and Cohenusing content analysis method. The statistical population is the prime-time evening news programs of the above mentioned TV channels observed for six months. The sample is selected via systematic sampling. The statistical tests which are used include Chi Square, Spearman’s correlation coefficient and coefficient of determining regression. The findings of this research show that the news broadcast in Northern countries have a high share in determining the trend of international news, which have mainly broadcast negative news about Islamic countries. On the other hand, the results about salience of news items indicate that though the value of the news (social deviation and salience) have a role in making news items important, they rarely become the reason for salience of news items. In fact, what journalists think is valuable as news,will not necessarily be broadcast.

Social asset is a source owned by organizations and individuals to achieve their objectives. Therefore, public relations play a significant and sometimes essential role in forming and consuming social asset. The present research attempts to answer the question which asks how public relations activities lead to production of social asset in generaland organizational social asset in particular. The goal of this study is to identify and explain the role of public relations and its components in production and reproduction of organizational social asset in production units (two Iranian car-manufacturing companies) and to present a suitable model.The methodology used in this applied research is descriptive-analytic survey. The statistical population consists of visitors to the car industry (two Iranian car-manufacturing companies) of Tehran in spring and summer 2010. 330 people were selected using two-stage cluster, simple randomized and systematic sampling. The interview and the questionnaire are made by the researcher, and the acceptability and stability of the survey was examined and confirmed in the pilot study. The results show that among the components defined for public relations, management of relations and development of relations, public information and education play an effective role in production and reproduction of the organizational social asset of the car-manufacturing industry, whereas the satisfaction, problem-solving and consultation components do not have much role.

In this study, social factors affecting the type of treatment of infertility chosen by infertile women are investigated. Among different social factors, the effect of two factors including social, communication and scientific relationsand social trust as independent variables on the dependent one (selection of treatment type) is examined. The statistical population of this research is two groups of infertile women in Infertility Research Center in Vali-e Asr Hospital. The first group consists of women who have chosen to be treated and the second group consists of women who have not. The sample of first group comprises 80 women selected from all infertile women who have visited the infertility clinic for treatment within 3 weeks. The second group with the same number of women was selected via random sampling. The present causal-comparative research is conducted by the survey technique, a quantitative approach and using questionnaire. The results show that the more are the social trust and social-communicative and scientific relations, the more the infertility treatment is chosen. On the other hand, there is a direct link between two variables of social trust andsocial-communicative and scientific relations. As the social trust increases, the social-communicative and scientific relations go up as well. Also, the findings indicate that factors such as family, friends, relatives, being informed of the science of treating infertility, information sources, how the information is accessed, the physicians, experts, trusting their honesty and reliability, financial supports provided by the spouse and relatives affect the level of social trust and social-communicative and scientific relations, and that there is a direct link between these two independent variables when it comes to choosing to be treated. In line with the achieved results, applicable suggestions appropriate with the findings of this research are presented, which are hoped to be helpful.