نشریه دین و ارتباطات
سال چهاردهم شماره 1 (بهار و تابستان 1386)

Despite a fundamental gap between social sciences and other types of sciences, primary considerations are of hiqh importance, to the extent that a lot of philosophers of science are after a distinetion between these on the basis of cognitive and analytical methods. Thus, the interpretive method being pivotal in social sciences, is to be taken as the starting point, and the dominant approach to comprehending the field depends on the basic principles of this medthod. This article, while referring to the major suggested methods for delineating social sciences, puts emphasis on the interpretive method and talks about its necessary requirements. Thus, the main methods of cognition are explaind are explained first, followed by principles of interpretive methods. Finally, the application of these principles in the field of social sciences are discussed.

Narratology in Iran has an old background. It was mostly done at a mere descriptive level by narrators. This article presents a type of anthropologically- based interpretation which aims at explaining things by referring to specific social elements at specific times and by using narratological method. This approach can help us study Turkmen tales from a sociocultural standpoint in order to determine the dominant discourse by delineating their relation with the public domain and their manner of development. The dominant discourse in Turkmen tales brings out the history and identity which conform with the society in the process of time. The present research has benefited from tools like interview and narratology to achieve its goals.

The aim of this paper is to have a general analysis of the obstacles to the development of a social policy in the post-revolutionary Iran by emphasizing on the places of social policy in the development plans. The paper argues that these plans, more than anytime in the past insist on focusing on the different issues in social policy and welfare in different parts, particularly on social protection issues, as by the post revolutionary constitutional law the state is defined as a welfare state. The paper also argues that despite the fact that the decision makers try to bring social policy to be higher up the agenda, to ensure the well-being of all of their citizens, the plans suffer the lack of a comprehensive social policy in the sense that there is no social policy discourse to fill the gap between theory and practice. Thus, the challenges facing the government in order to develop such a policy program in terms of social policy choices is how to bring together real stakeholders, whether the third sector in the society or social groups, theoreticians, elites and policy makers, to discuss the subject matter within focus groups and workshops. In addition, the paper tries to focus on the role of the stakeholders in the various sectors, i.e., public, private and voluntary sectors, and social groups to draw a realistic and accomplishable social policy program, a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of such programs and making priorities in the social policy. We suppose that we have to learn lessons by classical welfare states and their recent crisis which led to the argument of the end of the welfare state but we need an Iranian style of social policy in order to target the main challenges facing the state and the society by taking our opportunities.

The various functions of mosque are: devotional, educational, communicative, social, cultural, architectural, artistic, etc. The communicative and cultural functions, of mosque have manifested themselves in two general sorms as evidenced by both religious texts and Moslms, historical experience: culture- making and transmission of information. These are serving a noble religious cause, i.e. individual and social exaltation. From a developmental point of view, Islam has considered the sustained development in close relation with two major elements: a comprehensive look at humans and their existential dimensions, and not restricting human life to this world. Religion, therefore, assumes the sustained development as a phenomenon that recognizes all human needs and paves the way for human exaltation in all domains on the one hand, and includes all phases of human life, i.e worldly and otherworldly, on the other, It seems that mosque could be taken as a suitably communicative environment for educating and culture- making in the field of a sustained and religious- oriented development and thus training competent citizens who could be directed to this end.

Crisis is a kind of silent war which more than it does on the hardware system of the society, it has detrimental effects on its softwar system, namely the decision- making process and other social operations at different levels. According to the semantic analysis of the issue, crisis starts with the stage of chaos followed by that of difficult situation, dangerous point and finally confusion. Therefore no zero point is conceivable when talking about crisis, but it is rather rooted in some sort of imbalance in social systems whether governmental or non-governmental. The most crucial consequence is uncertainty and confusion that can create serious troubles for the society. In these circumstances and in the context of various cultures the media have the dual role of managing and managing and controlling or extending and heightening the crisis by adopting various methods such as exaggeration, persuasion, and education.

This paper is an attempt first to introduce the conceptual definition of public sphere from Habermas’s point of view, then explores its compatibility to virtual space as new grounds for formation of new public spheres and finally evaluates challenges and opportunities that the new media can produces with a focus on Electronic publishing. The focus of the paper is on the challenging nature of electronic publishing that is developing in the world and is sometimes considered as pathological while some consider it as an opportunity for formation or reproduction of public sphere. It is therefore the objective of this paper to answer the question of whether or not e-journalism will provide a ground for development or reproduction of public sphere. The paper in the end will try to propose strategies and /or ways that can take us out of the challenging situation that is being put forward by the development of virtual space. For this academic adventure, we have chosen e-journalism for our analysis as we consider being on the rise while facing challenges that are not applicable to traditional media such as television and radio. This is a contribution to the body of literature on development of new public sphere along with development of e-journalism.

In regard to the association between mass media and the more human aspects of communication, such as what happens in an interpersonal and direct communication, in creating a positive picture of and sustaining the western capitalism domination in the modern world, the article expounds on tourism as a type of intercultural, interpersonal and direct communication.This phenomenon, much emerging in recent decades, is essentially of a long historical background, and the article deals briefly with its status and development in both the Islamic and modern western civilizations. This process may have taken a dramatic turn form the consideration of culture to that of economy, but what is actually happening is the impact of this phenomenon on culture, paving the way for effecting cultural hegemony or what we call cultural invasion in the modern world.