Structural Analysis of the Factors Affecting the Future of the IRIB News Agency in the 5-year Horizon

Structural Analysis of the Factors Affecting the Future of the IRIBNews Agency in the 5year HorizonAbstractThe rate of change and the growthof new platforms and digital tools have complicated the news industry,intensifying competition between news organizations.Today,we are witnessing a media war, and the IRIB News Agency is in serious competition with the hostile and Western-affiliated media. Therefore,the purpose of the present study was to analyze the factors affecting the future of the IRIB News Agency in the5year Horizon to have a framework for thinking about the future and with it,take precautionary measures.In this study,in the first stage, the factors affecting the future of the IRIB News Agency over a 5year horizon were identified and then refined. Finally,21factors were finalized and approved by experts, including managers, editors,and veteran news editors of News of the Political Deputy and the IRIB News Agency,selected by purposivesampling method and based on the theoretical saturation rule,19interviews were sufficient.Experts also rated the factors in workshops in terms of effectiveness and susceptibility,and these scores were recorded and analyzed in the interaction matrix in MICMAC software.The results showed that the professional management of the IRIBNews Agency is one of the factors that have high effectiveness and low susceptibility and can affect the dependent factors that have a higher susceptibility.Among the most critical factors affecting the future of the IRIB News Agency are political trust and influentialpresence in cyberspace,which are among the biform factors that have high effectiveness and high susceptibility.Keywords:Structural Analysis,IRIBNews Agency,Interactions,Future Studies.