The Basics and Elements of Dialogue Journalism

The “dialogue journalism” is a new field approached by researchers as well as professionals and it have received considerable attentions by scientific, academic and professional circles besides international Assemblies including UNESCO, which is because of the importance of the “dialogue in media”. Here, the researcher’s problem is to study and explain the basics and elements of dialogue journalism and its situation in Iran’s Media.The Conceptual framework of this research is based on Lev Vygotsky’s concept of the “Zone of Proximal Development” combined with Mikhail Bakhtin's “dialogism”, Jurgen Habermas's “communicative action” and the “public sphere” theories and Jan Servaes's “Participatory Communication”. Designing “the pattern of cultural development in the media zone of proximal development”, here the researchers have defined characteristics and requirements of dialogue journalism. The method of research in this study has been “in-depth interview with experts” which finally included 21 people who were dialogue experts, professors of communication and journalists and by the purposive sampling they have been chosen to be interviewed.The findings of this study display that dialogue journalism is based on the recent news-values like being “Solution oriented”, “Process oriented”, “Truth oriented” and “People oriented”, yet the classic values have been considered as well. Indeed, a combination of professional journalism with new genres like citizen, networked and activist journalism is much more coherent with nature of the dialogue journalism. Moreover, the research has come to the point that this kind of journalism has not yet achieved its appropriate position and function in Iran, but it is possible to promote it through increasing the media literacy of the public besides general and professional education about dialogue journalism’s accessories and functions and finally providing an operational doctrine for dialogue journalism.