فهرست مطالب علیرضا تابش

Iranian cinema has won remarkable success in the most prestigious film festivals and communities with more emphasis on its role as a cultural medium. The issues including the industrialization of film and cinema, and the extent to which Iran has changed its world share of the markets have also raised in the context of internationalization. However, the aforementioned have failed to enjoy success achieved as the media and cultural dimension. The research population for this research was asked to answer to the question “Why the economic share of Iranian cinema in the world markets is so small that it failed to enjoy the expected returns on capital spent?” To find answers to the question the number of 23 experts focusing on Cinema, Creative Industries and Creative Industries Economics, Film Trading and Marketing, International Marketing and Entering World Markets, Cultural Marketing and Content Marketing have been interviewed between 2018 to 2019. The data was analyzed using the Grounded theory. Findings suggests that cinema cannot only be taken as entertainment or merely the flagship of a country’s culture, but also as an interdisciplinary field that requires diverse expertise across a value chain to transform an idea into a product that is consciously presented to the right audience. Designing this product and reaching the desired target audience in the selected market is possible only on the basis of business research, marketing and consumer behavior. On the other hand, accessibility method to the audience is also important in today’s vibrant media world; an in-depth investigation can determine which types of media provides the most appropriate platform for the right product presentation to the target audience. At the sameAlireza Tabesh1, Ali Akbar Farhangi**2, Seyed Rouhollah Hosseini3, Tahmures Shiri41 Ph.D Student in Media Management, Department of Cultural Affairs and Media Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.2 Professor, Department of Cultural Affairs and Media Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Science and Research branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.3 Assistant Professor, Department of European Studies, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.4 Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran.(Received 22 Jan 2020, Accepted 6 Feb 2021)time, the income level of the product can be increased by extending its intellectual property rights to related industries, thereby prolonging product life. Cinema can become internationally sustainable and receive a share of the world market and achieve commercial success when it becomes an industry-based through meticulous planning and interdisciplinary knowledge. Of course, Iranian cinema also needs centers of innovation and acceleration to create such a product. Given the issue of a foreign trade of a product, the film business environment must be examined from a political, cultural, social, legal and economic point of view in order to properly plan and select the foreign market. A product, enjoying these features and produced based on targeted content and authentic Iranian content, relying on the creative thinking and art power of the filmmaker’s can have the power to earn foreign currency. These are aspects that, despite the overwhelming motivation to internationalize Iranian cinema, have been neglected and thus cinem has not been able to achieve a comprehensive and sustained success. Thus, various macro, reformative, educational-research based, developmental, marketing, international, legal, income based, and investment and financing strategies have been proposed. The current findings show the path taken by Iranian cinema, the present conditions it faces, and what needs to be accomplished in order to receive a share of the world’s international film market.

Despite significant success in international festivals, Iranian cinema industry has failed to gain a share of the global markets. This interdisciplinary research, while examining the factors affecting the entry of Iranian cinema industry into international markets, tends to find out the flourishing context for the products of Iranian cinema, the steps it has taken to gain a share of the international markets, and what planned measures should be taken into account for this purpose in order to determine its distance from the involved countries and to provide the necessary solutions to advance the goal of internationalization. The macro-factors affecting all businesses in general and the specific factors of the cinema industry have been examined and finally, the consequences of such strategies have been clarified. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive model for the entry of Iranian visual and cinematic products into the international markets.

This research is "fundamental" in terms of purpose and is "exploratory" in terms of result which has applied a "qualitative" approach. This research is based on the systematic model proposed by Strauss and Corbin on grounded theory; for this porpuse, 23 interviews were conducted with the experts including directors and film agents, international activists in the field of video distribution and professors of media management and marketing management during 2019 and 2020.

The proposed model provides a comprehensive image of the current situation of Iranian visual products and cinema industry in terms of the possibility of entering into the international markets. For example, any shifts toward making expensive films cannot give us the power to compete with the dominant cinema and it does not comply with the style and history of cultural-artistic films for which Iranian cinema is known in the world. Meanwhile the lack of infrastructure and necessary laws for the field of film export, lack of copyright in Iran, inability of Iranian film and cinema to compete with the mainstream in the world, lack of attention to producing films based on the audiences’ taste, technical requirements, content requirements, lack of required capital, the lack of professional business and international marketing managers, and, of course, the legal requirements are among the main barriers to the entry of Iranian films into the international markets. Therefore, necessary efforts should be made in the management structures to transform the Iranian cinema market into an organic market in accordance with international standards with a focus on the decision-making institutional context in the field of cinema and the role of national production and wealth. They should establish communication between traditional business owners and startup innovators. Within the ideological attitude of the government, the procedures should shift from a negative to a positive view, and with an economic (business) priority to make it possible to adapt the films to the target market and gain economic benefit. There is also the need for a change in the attitude and the plan of the senior institutions in order to shape the bases of co-production and to change the attitude of Iranian cinematographers in exploiting new technologies for a more professional production and distribution of the films.

Unilateralism, lack of a collective spirit, and lack of professionalism have prevented the right action for Iranian cinema to enter international markets. Ignoring the need for cinema to become industrialized, ignoring the power of its media, and relying solely on marketing and commerce have prevented Iranian cinema from gaining a share of the global market. However, the entry of Iranian films into the international market as the indicator of culture and art can represent the national identity of the country and help maintain the country credibility in the field of public diplomacy. In addition, the commercial performance of the cinema, provided that its industrial cycle is completed, will be an important source for the growth of non-oil exports and help the independence of the country's economy from oil exports.

In this paper, the concept of media and its content as a mass media as well as media as a diplomatic tool to convey the content and meaning of the objective to international audience have been evaluated. The importance of using cinema in introducing culture, telling the truth and its status in this path has been reviewed and then reasons behind using cinemas a tool of media diplomacy and cultural diplomacy have been discussed and each of these new concepts has been separately elaborated.
In this study, by using library research process based on secondary data, efforts have been made to use scientific concepts and upstream documents of cinema industry of the country, a process base framework to be presented. This framework has been designed in four stages and the final result show that cinema if used objectively and systematically can play a unique role in formulating international relations and bringing inline the international audience to become aware of our Iranian culture and identity of the country and at the same time to confront the distorted image given about Iran by leaders of some countries.