Investigating the Role of Radio in Educating and Promoting Family Communication Skills

Iranian society is presently in a critical situation due to the transitory conditions arising from tradition to modern times and Iranian family institution is among the social institutions which is affected by these conditions. Cultural policy makers inevitably have to intervene and provide Iranian family with related education in order to reduce social harm to this institution. With regard to the fact that women are the most important listeners of radio programs and play a key role in providing the family institution with love, radio programs can best render this kind of education. The present study, using Grounded theory approach, compiled the data required to analyze the role of radio programs in promoting family communication skills through in-depth interviews with 17 married women who were the regular listeners of radio programs. Data analysis showed that because of women welcome of radio programs and their strong need to the family communication skills, a significant contribution of radio programs listened by women covered news topics, entertainment programs such as radio contests, music, family educational programs like child- rearing needs on day to day basis, communication and marriage skills that the participants of this research listened to. The conceptual model also showed meaningful relationships among different categories of listeners to the radio programs.