The Role of the Mass Media in Urban Management (Case Study: 22-district of Tehran Municipality)

Urban management in today’s competitive world should be able to identify city’s strengths and weaknesses and improve its competitive advantages. The importance of urban management in order to access to urban sustainable development is to improve citizens’ conditions and quality of life, protect city’s physical environment, enhance citizens’ trust level to urban management, and improve their participation level in managing urban affairs. On the other hand, media, as a powerful component of civil society, affect different parts of the community; therefore, this research explains the role of mass media in urban management. Research methodology is survey. Statistical population includes clients of 22-district of Tehran Municipality in 2014. 400 of them were selected as sample research by stratified cluster random sampling. To collect data, research-made questionnaire, including 24 questions, was used. It was obtained by interviewing with experts. Its face validity was confirmed and its reliability was calculated by Cronbach’s alpha. In order to analyze data statistically, one-sample t-test, ANOVA, and Lee Hee tests were used. The results indicated that the role of mass media in urban management is more than average. However, mass media influence more on improvement of citizen’s participation in administering urban affairs and it affects citizen’s trust level less.