The role of mass media in creating identity and promoting various sports in Iran

The media play an important role in creating identity for sports and promoting them in society. The purpose of this study was to identify the performance of the media in reflecting the identity of sports and encouraging society to participate in them. Exploratory mixed research method included qualitative method using nominal interview and questionnaire survey method were used in the research. The participants in the qualitative section consisted of 27 professionals and athletes who were purposefully selected and the population in the survey consisted of athletes who were members of national teams or those who were invited to national team camps, and also coaches and veterans of 13 sports. The research tools in the qualitative section were pen and paper, audio recording and semi-structured questions, and in the quantitative part was a researcher-made questionnaire. The results showed that the role of media was identified with two categories of identity creation, including sub-categories of cultural development and sports management methods, as well as promotion with sub-categories of marketing and public participation. Also Findings showed that the most media focus in most sports was on introducing sports heroes as role model, and in martial arts, more attention was paid to cultural categories than other issues. It is suggested that the media pay attention to cultural values in introducing sports so that sports can be used as a cultural tool to guide and attract young people to sports.