The Role of Mass Media in Promoting Health Through Public Sports

Public exercise is a low-cost, fun and effective tool that can be implemented by the public, and can contribute to promotion of physical, mental and social health. The aim of this study was to design a model for the role and strategies of mass media in promotion of public sports in Iran.

The present study was an applied, quantitative and correlational research, field-based in terms of data collection and prospective in terms of time. The instrument of the present study comprised a questionnaire that was extracted from factors identified in the qualitative part. The factors were identified through semi-structured interviews with experts in the field of sports media. The statistical population in the quantitative stage consisted of a sample of 360 athletes who were members of the federation and public sports boards. Convenience volunteer sampling methods were used. Statistical analyses used in this study included descriptive statistics methods for calculating central indices and dispersion of research variables; and inferential statistics including exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha and correlation coefficient. in SPSS and Amos softwaress were used.

The amount of factor loads of the obvious variables was greater than the cut-off point of 0.4, while T-statistic was greater than the cut-off point of 2.576 (P <0.01), which indicates the reliability of the structure.

It can be concluded that social media has a significant impact on promoting health culture through public education in Iran.