The way of highlighting the most important social issues in Iran in the news of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (case study: 20:30 News Section)

Media have an essential role in highlighting the most important social issues, albeit they are not able to address all of them. The main aim of the research which was conducted through quantitative content analysis is to examine the way of highlighting the most important social issues of Iran including job-related issues, urban issues, marriage-related issues, educational issues, environmental issues, drug-related issues, sexual issues, crimes, poverty and inequality derived from previous researches in 20:30 News Section of IRIB TV2 in the period from October 2016 to March 2017. The findings of the research indicate that the aforementioned news section had a poor performance in highlighting the mentioned social issues. As of 1202 news examined in the news section, only 313 news which were accounted as 26 percent of the total news addressed the issues. Based on the findings and in terms of news arrangements, from the 313 selected news related to the issues, 93 news were placed in the first priority and 97 news were hold in the second priority of the news section. Moreover, through scrutinizing the news the crimes-related issues with 29.7 percent, environmental issues with 22 percent, job-related issues with 14.7 percent and the issues related to poverty and inequality with 13.4 percent had been highlighted more than the other issues. And also, the least addressed and highlighted issue comes to sexual issues.