The Convergence of Television and Internet in Iran and its Consequences on Media Policy

The convergence of television and the internet not only changes the mode of television production, distribution and patterns of watching but also the industry structure. Many countries have responded to these changes and revised their media policies and regulations.The consequences of media convergence have reached Iran media environment and have affected media policies too, and now due to the monopolistic structure oftelevision, policymakers have been faced many problems. Through face to face, in-depth interviews of 17 policymakers and media experts, this study tries to map the main problems and challenges of television and internet integration. This article shows that in spite of many disorders in policymaking process and the existence of multiple and parallel institutions, the main idea of the policy in post media convergence era are‘cultural engineering’. Although in the first place, the main priority of the media policymaking is protecting national security and providing political purposes, yet the convergence of television and the internet in Iran is affected by privatization and commercialization along with neoliberal trends in the television industry in the world.