Introduction to the Directorate General of Islamic Media Studies

With the aim of accelerating and guiding the growing movement to align the National Media with the media standard of Islam and the Islamic Revolution, and to produce media knowledge based on religious thought, the IRIB Islamic Research Center was established in 1373 in the city of Qom. Since this goal could not be achieved without relying on religious scholars and utilizing the capabilities of the seminaries, its location was designated as the holy city of Qom.
The result of this strategic action after 20 years of activity was the printing and publication of more than 700 book titles and more than 1,200 issues of various journals to guide and intellectually support the planners and producers of IRIB.

The IRIB Islamic Research Center was transformed into the Directorate General of Islamic Media Studies in 1393, based on reviews carried out in the structure of the IRIB organization.
The Directorate General of Islamic Studies, as the connecting link between the seminaries and the media and as a strategic center for institutionalizing Islamic teachings in IRIB programs, undertakes the following missions:
“Production of artistic and media knowledge with an Islamic approach, supplying the research needs of the National Media, with the aim of elevating the structure and content of programs and realizing the Islamic media”
In this path, the following principles and values are considered:
1. Attention and emphasis on Islamic teachings, the ideals of the Revolution and the system, the guidelines of the late Imam and the Supreme Leader, and the missions of the IRIB organization;
2. Creating a jihadist and innovative atmosphere by strengthening the motivation of scholars and researchers to realize the Islamic media;
3. Relying on the scientific and research capabilities and potentials of the seminaries;
4. Methodological, solid, and scientific nature of the researches;
5. Orienting research, education, and production toward the real needs of the media;
6. Practicalizing religious teachings in the field of art;
7. Elevating the status of research and researchers in the organization;
8. An excellence-seeking approach in all elements and activities.

Macro Goals
1. Production of artistic and media knowledge based on religious values and teachings;
2. Supplying the media’s needs, deepening and elevating the enlightenment and faith, virtues, and sincere religious behavior of all segments of society, and preserving and elevating Iranian-Islamic culture and identity;
3. Producing works to root public recognition and belief in the values and intellectual foundations of the Islamic Revolution and system;
4. Benefiting from the scientific and research capacities of universities, research institutes, and active centers in the field of religion and media inside and outside the country;
5. Safeguarding the message, content, and format of influential programs, especially grade-A and special-grade-A series through serious participation in all stages of production;
6. Facilitating managers’ and producers’ access to religious information and knowledge;
7. Raising the expert level of the National Media’s religious programs;
8. Strengthening the connection between the seminaries and the National Media;
9. Elevating the religious, artistic, media, and communication insight and knowledge of media managers and producers;
10. Raising awareness regarding the anti-religious and anti-value activities of foreign media;
11. Presenting an exemplary organizational model committed to the principles and requirements of professional ethics.

 

Research Strategies of the Directorate General of Islamic Studies:
1. Being based on religious teachings;
2. Commission-centered and emphasizing the needs of the IRIB organization;
3. Being media-oriented and considering the usability of researches in the media;
4. Continuous improvement of the quality of products and activities;

Structure of the Directorate General of Islamic Media Studies

Considering the aforementioned position and functions, creating a close and organic connection between the Directorate General and the headquarters and field (networks and provincial centers) is a strategic and important need whose structural mechanism must be provided.
Changing societal issues and its needs make the organization’s approaches variable; due to the constant change of the organization’s needs and the necessity of adapting the needs of the media audience with the teachings of the religion of Islam and the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), conducting fundamental and applied research appropriate to the needs of the National Media is one of the main goals of the new structure of the Directorate General of Islamic Media Studies. Therefore, all religious media research is pursued and conducted in two offices of fundamental and applied research, each of which has appropriate research groups:


Office of Fundamental Research:
The duty of this office is to enter into fundamental Islamic media research. Theoretical and conceptual issues that can affect all affairs and activities of a media in a religious government. In other words, this office explores the foundations of religious thought in the field of media activities. To supply this strategic need, the activities of this office are pursued in the following four groups:

Ethics and Media Group
The Ethics and Media Group of the Directorate General of Islamic Media Studies was formed with the aim of conducting fundamental investigations into the relationship between ethics and media and the ethical relationship of the media with the audience, as well as supplying ethical-media research for program makers of IRIB centers. The purpose of conducting this research is content support for the programs of the National Media, which are carried out by university and seminary researchers. Among the research projects of the Ethics and Media Group, the following can be mentioned:
• Media Ethical Charter
• Ethical culture of the Infallibles (AS) letters Z, V, S, Z;
• Media strategies for preventing grudge and enmity;
• Media and the ethical foundations of women’s social presence;
• Media solutions for strengthening environmental ethics with an Islamic approach, etc.
Contact number: 025-32915545
Email: ethics.media@irc.ir

Jurisprudence and Media Group
The existence of hundreds of issues in the field of new media, the necessity of truly recognizing the position of the media and its dimensions, and harmonizing with the intellectual system of Islam made it necessary for this group to come into existence. The Jurisprudence and Media Group has started working with the aim of supporting the managers and producers of the National Media and helping to create a media harmonized with jurisprudential rulings. This group examines the issues and challenges facing the producers of the National Media such as the jurisprudence of music, the jurisprudence of humor, etc., and produces thought in the field of media jurisprudence and jurisprudence-oriented media. Some of the research projects of this group are:
• Music and media
• Nature recognition of desirable humor
• Principles of the relationship between men and women in media programs
• Jurisprudential dimensions of critique programs
Contact phone: 025-32910600
Email: figh.media@irc.ir

Beliefs and Media Group
The Beliefs and Media Group endeavors to examine fundamental media issues and beliefs. Supplying belief-based research for the program makers of IRIB centers is another duty of this group. In fact, the purpose of this research is content support for the programs of the National Media, and researchers from seminary and university centers carry out this research project-wise with the group’s opinion. Also, communication with scientific, research, and media centers to elevate the quality of research work is another duty of this group. Below we mention some of the research activities of this group that have been made available to program makers of various centers as a book:
• Imam Hussain from the perspective of Ahl al-Sunnah;
• Imam Reza (AS) from the perspective of Ahl al-Sunnah;
• Answering Wahhabism doubts about Shiism;
• Depiction of the angels Azrael, the angel of death, and Hazrat Israfil in the media;
• The soul in Islamic culture with an emphasis on its nature;
• Characteristics of Islamic mysticism.
Contact number: 025-32910601
Email: belaefs.media@irc.ir

Religious Culture and Art of Media Group
The mutual impact of the media on the field of culture, especially in a society where religious culture is the basis, has made the necessity of studying the ratio of these two fields greater, and on the other hand, studying between religion and art and producing theory in the field of religious art are among the necessities that have caused one of the research groups to focus on this subject.
Contact number 025-32928795

Office of Applied Research:

Deviant Religious Currents and Thoughts Group
Among the emerging damages in the field of religion and media studies is the existence of deviant currents and thoughts, eclecticism or superstition, man-made modern spiritualities, and the like. Monitoring these damages, presenting religious teachings proportionate to it, and reaching media strategies and solutions is the most important duty of this group.
The most important activities of this group are as follows:
1. Round-the-clock monitoring and examination of 12 hostile Persian-language religious satellite networks
2. Publication of 48 issues of the confidential journal of Suspicion Waves (monitoring and examining hostile Shiite, Wahhabi, missionary Christian, Baha’i, and Sufi satellite networks)
3. Monitoring, analyzing, and examining the most important domestic media-theological currents, including compiling two reports on the Heavenly Nights program of Quran and Islamic Education TV Network – analyzing and reviewing Samt-e Khoda program, etc.
4. Holding meetings on the current-recognition of the trend of portraying end-times events in the West, foresight and media threats, and the current-recognition of otherworldly concepts in TV series, etc.;
5. Continuous monitoring and formation of a think tank and analysis and review working groups for special Ramadan series in Arabic networks with the theme of Islamic history and compiling booklets and analysis and review books such as: Al-Hassan and Al-Hussein series, Al-Farooq Omar and Imam al-Fuqaha, Khaybar, Stories of Women in the Quran and Under the Sky of the Homeland and Bab al-Murad (Biography and life of Imam Jawad);
6. Designing and producing the visual bulletin [multimedia software] “Mersad”, “Venomous Waves”, and “Suspicion Waves”: monitoring the country’s media space in cultural and religious fields; with subject categorization and search capabilities.
7. Researching and investigating satellite network doubts on the subject of Imam Hussain’s uprising and Ashura events and preparing a book with the same theme along with “Programming ideas to deal with them”
8. Researching, investigating, and preparing the book “Ashura and Satellite Networks, Media Solutions and Strategies to Deal with the Doubts of Imam Hussain’s Uprising”
9. Preparing 8 issues of media strategy booklets with topics such as, current-recognition of end-times events, “National Media and the Propagation and Promotion of Mahdism Culture”; “Functions of the National Media and Economic Jihad”, National Media, Woman and Family, and how to deal with deviant religions and sects, etc.
10. Providing consultation, expertise, and content to television programs produced on the subject of satellite (Pendar, Haqiqat, The Twelfth Moon, Shab-e Asmani, etc.)
Contact phone: 025-32919676

History and Occasions Group
Elevating the public culture of society, glorifying divine rituals, and commemorating religious occasions is one of the duties of the National Media, which plays an effective role in culturalization and the spread of Islamic values at the societal level. Therefore, the Occasions Group, in order to support the content of National Media programs on occasions, undertakes the research required for it:
1. Occasional research on Islamic (religious-national) topics;
2. Research in the field of the biography and life of religious figures (political-cultural).
Some of the published research works of this group are:
– Publishing 16 volumes of books with the theme of subtitles and short messages with various political, social, and cultural topics
– Publishing about 30 books on the themes of the motto of the years 89–92
– Publishing books such as: Media and Islamic Art, Method of Programming with the Theme of Mahdism, The Imams’ Biography in Mourning for Imam Hussain (AS) with a Media Approach, Programming Daily, Aesthetics of the Ashura Epic, etc.
Contact number 025-32902222
Email history.group@irc.ir

Family and Lifestyle Group
The Family and Lifestyle Group of the Directorate General of Islamic Media Studies was formed with the aim of studying and conducting applied research regarding family, Islamic lifestyle, and media, and intellectual and content support for IRIB program makers.
Interacting and utilizing the capacities of seminary research centers and specific research institutes for women, family, and lifestyle studies is within the mission area of this group.
1. Necessity and rationale of the group:
– Importance of the subject of family and lifestyle;
– The need of media professionals for up-to-date topics in the field of family and lifestyle;
– Content support for media networks tasked with operating in the field of family and lifestyle;
– The existence of hostile satellite networks against Islamic lifestyle and family foundations;
– The Supreme Leader’s demand from cultural institutions, especially the National Media, toward pathology and reform of lifestyle and the family’s role in this issue;
2. Goals:
– Clarifying Islam’s view on the importance of the position, dignity, and functions of the family in the Islamic system;
– Promoting the formation, consolidation, and excellence of the family institution and preventing its wavering and collapse through the National Media;
– Elevating the cultural and educational level of family members in order to play an effective role in the family;
– Countering the suggestions of foreign Persian-language satellite networks active with the mission of destroying the family foundation and instilling Western lifestyle;
– Raising the awareness of family members regarding each other’s rights and duties and removing the society’s incorrect attitudes through the media;
– Expanding and deepening genuine Islamic values in the family to raise a healthy, faithful, responsible, and effective generation in the growth of themselves, the family, and society based on the Islamic-Iranian lifestyle;
– Providing strategy to managers and producers of the National Media in order to strengthen and deepen family-oriented programs;
– Providing appropriate solutions and ideas for presenting the model of the desirable family in the Iranian-Islamic lifestyle in programs;
– Pathology of family programs and helping to reform and improve the process of program making;
3. Published works:
– Woman; Domination system and media;
– Descriptive bibliography of woman and family;
– Media, culture, and lifestyle; Examining the model of the desirable Iranian-Islamic family in the National Media;
– Woman in Islamic history and thought and a look at women’s rights in Islam;
– Threats and damages of Persian-language satellite networks to the family with an emphasis on women.
4. Research projects:
– Family, emerging damages and challenges, and its media solutions;
– Thematic atlas; Extracting applied topics in the field of lifestyle.
And……
In addition to this, the two bimonthly journals “Media and Family” and “Child, Youth and Media”, each in seven issues, were printed in this group until the end of 1393.
Contact number: 025-32935803 – 32928730
Email: family_media@irc.ir

Management of Khorasan Razavi Representation
– Increasing interaction with the seminary of Mashhad and Astan Quds Razavi and other scientific and research centers;
– Elevating the field of religion and media research through continuous and up-to-date communication with experts, thinkers, and researchers at the level of Khorasan province;
– Attracting and training committed researchers, consultants, experts, and supervisors in the field of religion and media at the level of Khorasan province;
– Cooperation, participation, and provision of programming services to program-making sectors at national and provincial levels in the field of increasing the qualitative richness of Islamic programs;
– Identifying the research needs of the organization’s program-making departments in the field of religious-Islamic research and productions;
– Analysis and approach-recognition of the religious format and content of IRIB programs.

Contact number: 051-32215108

Email: kh.razavi@irc.ir

 

 

Research Services Management

Information Technology
Information Technology presents the works and products of the Directorate General of Islamic Studies on the website and software.
Some facilities available on the website of the Directorate General of Islamic Studies include:
– Providing the full text of books and publications of the Directorate General;
– Providing the text of religious selections in eight different topics;
– Providing information of top-tier Islamic thinkers;
– Providing information of media experts in various specialties of Islamic and human sciences;
– Providing ideas, designs, and screenplays with religious themes;
– Providing works related to the motto of different years;
– Providing works related to upcoming national and religious occasions in special information packages;
– Advanced search capability in all stated facilities.
Contact number: 025-32917442
Email: it@irc.ir

 

Library and Archive:

The library of the Directorate General of Islamic Media Studies has been formed with the sublime goal of realizing the Islamic media and in order to organize Islamic research in the National Media so that research needs are optimally supplied and the content of Islamic programs of this pervasive media is also elevated. The library and archive of the Directorate General also began its service and collection development simultaneously with the start of this Directorate General’s work. The Directorate General’s library includes Persian, Arabic, and Latin books, Persian periodical publications, brochures, theses, etc., which are used by researchers, students, and book lovers. Also, the archive is tasked with preserving, maintaining, and providing services for the supplied and produced audiovisual resources of the center.
The library is currently the largest library in the IRIB organization, possessing more than 35,000 book titles, 200 publication titles, 311 thesis titles; 250 research brochure titles, and more than 1,000 active members.
Also, the archive includes 7,000 films and documentaries and more than 140,000 minutes of rushes and production resources of the Directorate General.
The center’s archive, in addition to possessing 5,000 titles of prominent Iranian and world feature films, 120,000 minutes of rushes of scholars and sages, 30,000 minutes of production programs of the Directorate General, and 2,000 titles of documentary programs, is responsible for three main activities carried out in two separate sections. These sections are:
A) Audiovisual section: This section is responsible for identifying required resources, procuring resources, extracting related information, data entry, and final preparation.
B) Production archive section: This section deals with reviewing, shot listing, and providing services related to the productions of various units of the Directorate General of Islamic Studies as well as student productions of the Faculty of IRIB Qom and issuing archive receipts.
Contact number: 025-32920077

Cooperation with the Directorate General