The effect of sports participation on social capital by mediating the role of media and the interactive ability of individuals

The aim of the present study was to analyze the effect of sports participation on social capital based on the mediating role of media and interactive ability of individuals. The method is described-correlational, in terms of process strategy, for the purpose of application and in terms of field data collection method. The population of the study consisted of citizens of Guilan province with athletic activities and the sample was estimated based on the Morgan table with more than 10,000 people in 384 people. The research tools included sport participation questionnaire, Participate in sports cyberspace questionnaire, interactive capability questionnaire, and social capital questionnaire, each containing 4 dimensions and 16 questions. To evaluate the content and formality, comments and suggestions were made by six expert sports for all and six sports management specialist in reviewing the tools. Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis using PPL software were used to study the construct validity and analysis of the main hypotheses. The results showed that sport participation had a direct and significant effect on media participation, interactivity and social capital. Meanwhile, Sobel's test in the analysis of mediator relations showed that the indirect effect of sports participation on social capital from both the medium of media participation and the interactive capability is more than its direct effect. Therefore, it can be argued that although sports participation directly increases social capital, interventions such as training interactions and media participation increase its impact.