Local media and development; Case study of Zanjan province

Local media and development; Case study of Zanjan province Abstract: Though to the importance of communications and media in development, the main purpose of this study is to understand the standpoints of selected groups of citizens about the capacities, policies and success rate of local media in various dimensions of development and the strengths and weaknesses of local media٫ compared to national and international ones about the development. To achieve the goals٫ standpoints of 10 groups of citizens of Zanjan province, who are considered as intellectual leaders and reference groups of the province due to their position and influence, have been studied by semi-structured questionnaire. The number of adjectives from each group was three and their total number was 30 and the answers were coded and conceptualized using thematic analysis method. The research findings indicated that the level of knowledge of the mentioned groups about the local media of the province and their productions is low and these media have not been able to achieve much success in attracting elite audiences. In addition, most research participants believe that local media have serious weaknesses in various aspects of provincial development for various reasons, including ineffectiveness and mainstreaming. Also, compared to similar domestic and foreign examples, these media have problems such as weaknesses in financial resources and equipments, product quality, audience attraction and effectiveness and these media should make more utilization of the strategic advantages of being local, cultural adaptation, low production costs, and audience trust. The main proposed strategy is that in order to benefit from the communication capacities for development, first the development of communications should be based on various indicators including infrastructure, procedures, financial resources, product quality, audience attraction and impact on the agenda.