Media Economics and Cultural Policy in Iran: Reconstruction of Public Supporting System and Transformation of Newspaper Industry towards Online Journalism and New Business Models

The complicated nature of the newspaper industry in Iran makes for interesting study. Currently the newspaper industry is transitioning away from the government-funded model, where the press was deeply dependent on government aid and subsidiaries, to a free market system. The paper has implemented the income-expense approach to explain the dependency of newspapers on government aids. After a review on the history of the press, the larger view of the press reveals that government aids can be classified into seven areas: direct funds, government ads, government subscriptions, no-fund based supports (paper, publishing, etc), providing welfare facilities to journalists, tax exemptions, and ad-hoc supports. The ongoing process of restructuring the subsidiary system has led to many changes. In 2010, the subsidiary system began to transition to a free market system. No longer able to depend on the government for sustenance, papers were forced to adapt to the changing market or go out of business. This paper explores that change in indirect aids to funds that forced many newspapers out of the market and allowed new, agile ones to emerge. New business models appeared that made better use of the resources.