Print and electronic journalism in Iran in the next twenty years

Introduction and Statement of problem: The main objective of this paper is use existing data in order to identify and predict the status of Iranian journalism in the next few years? Will today’s newspapers and journalism disappear? What is the status of electronic journalism and what is the status of printed newspapers against its growing growth?  Therefore, a Delphi method was used to identify the features and components of journalism as well as their possible challenges in Iran over the next 20 years.  To reach such objective, a long-term in-depth interview was used so to let interviewees to reach an agreement among themselves.  This study was conducted in 2014 and it explains the 20-year perspective of the Iranian newspapers, i.e., 2034.  Journalism in Iran has faced many challenges since its inception, and has gone through ups and downs causing Iranian bizarre journalism to become even more complicated.  Therefore, some experts predict that written journalism will be disappeared in the next few years.  This is while some believe that Iranian journalism will only undergo some changes but does not disappear.  The above points make the study more relevant.  In this research, an overview of the future of journalism in Iran will be provided with the views of experts in this field to assess the future of the world of print and electronic newspapers and their interaction, as well as to predict and propose appropriate solutions for equipping and modifying the infrastructure and related superstructures that would possible help sustain the Iranian tradition of journalism.
Theoretical Framework: Considering that the research has been exploratory, the theoretical domain of this study is only based on research literature and no definite theory is proposed here.  Nonetheless, since each scientific research must be consistent with some theoretical framework, two areas are explained in this section at first; the concepts of futurism is dealt with, and theories of information society is considered as the closest and most relevant existing communication theories although futurism is considered as the basis of research.
The richness of media is defined by Daft and Langel (1986) as "the ability to change intelligence over a period of time."  Media richness theory says communication media will be able to enable users to communicate and change. The degree of this ability is known as the "richness of the media." The media richness criticizes all communication media based on their ability to create a complicated message. Media that can overcome different frames of reference and turn on conflicting issues become richer, while communication media that require more time to understand the message are less expensive
The main criterion for choosing a communication medium for a specific message regards the question of whether the ambiguity or possible mistakes in the message can be reduced.  This is because if a message is not clear enough, it may be difficult for the audience to decode it.  The more ambiguous the message is, the more signs and data the audience needs to interpret the message.  For example, a simple message intended to arrange the time and place of a meeting can be done in a short email, but a more detailed message about job performance and the expectations of a person can communicate better than email if it happens through face to face communication and interaction among people.
Research Delphi's futuristic approach is used in this research.  Delphi is a method for collecting expert opinions and it is one of the most relevant techniques for integrating insights, experiences, evaluations, and practices of individuals. Since this research is an exploratory research, and the goal of the researchers is to identify, explain and define the unknown phenomena of journalism in Iran, therefore, instead of the hypothesis, the research questions are answered, i.e., a method that helps to predict the future. It should be noted that we used the term "newspaper or journalism" in this research to refer to a print or electronic newspaper or journalism.
Statistical population: The statistical community here is made of Journalists, professionals and managers working in the field of press and journalism in Iran, provided they have more than 10 years of journalism experience.  They include professors and specialists in the field of social communication and journalism who work in news offices.
Sampling: Delphi method expert sampling is used which is a purposeful and snowball sampling.  In such a method, a number of (n = 3) of specialists from 18 experts were selected.  This research was conducted in two series of interviews and two rounds in a panel form.  However, the process was slow and hard because of the interviewers’ business. The experts and professors who helped us as our snow ball samples are as follows: Hasan Namkodost Tehrani, Hamid Ziaei Parvar, Hossein Ghandi, Ali Akbar Ghazizadeh, Mehrdad Kheidir, Hossein Entezami, Reza Moghaddasi, Alireza Farahmand, Fahad Fardnia, Mohammad Ghoochani, Mostafa Ghavandloo Qajar, Mohammad Mehdi Forghani, Mahmood Sadri, Majid Rezaiean, Bahareh Nasiri, Bahareh Bashi, Hamid Reza Hosseini Dana, Majid Yousefi
Method of data collection: The main technique of Delphi for collection of data is interview. We prepared some questions that were taken from expert's opinions and construct a questionnaire. Experts were asked to express their agreement or disagreement with the terms. Shared terms were extracted as predictions and less subscribed items were reassessed with changes.  After that, the controversial comments were valued with the Likert scale to measure the amount of agreement or disagreement and to obtain the final terms.
Findings: some of the results indicate that paper and print newspapers will remain in the future and will not disappear, and print press challenges will remain and will not be eliminated.  Nevertheless, most experts believe that these challenges are much less common in electronic newspapers.  On the other hand, the impact of global issues on the media will be more than today and more than indigenous culture. The research findings also show that print newspapers use different content based on the rich media theory of the future, and the role of the audience in all sections of the newspaper will increase significantly, to the extent that many social media are formed and will grow. In addition, the role of economics and economic issues in the future of Iranian newspapers will increase.
It should also be noted that the share of electronic journalism in the future will increase as technology grows and print newspapers are forced to have electronic versions.  At the same time, they rely heavily on their strengths.  In this way, they must come to the investigative reports and fascinating writings in terms of media richness and the analysis and interpretation become more important than news quotes.
Therefore, they are affected by images, graphics, and content changes created by the web.  Of course, they also use loose trust in the audience on the Web and they make the audience less misguided by visiting them through orthography and trusteeship. This suggests that the interaction of these two types of journalism will be high, and in spite of their difference in terms of form and content, they will not eliminate one another at least in our 20-year- perspective assessment.  Therefore, we found out that considering the two types of electronic and print journalism as separate medium was a right research choice.