Online Civic Participation and Development of Local Communities in Iran

This paper reviews the citizen media and studies the fourth generation of communication development theories emphasizes on participatory communication. In this kind of theories the cibizen’s parbicipation and their activeness is the center of case instead of the public Accessibility of media. Therefore providing an opportunity for dialogue through media and providing dialogue Democracy in the process of communication is considered as the basis of development in the local communities. In order to achieve the goal of communication development, the virtual networks prove to be a potential source and can depict the cooperation of locals without any physical locations. The case study in the paper is Fesharaki Family Network which is a successful example of a virtual Media with the motto of "think locally and act globally". Which Showes the capability of this class of Medias in the development.