درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The social contract has been about rights and responsibilities in human societies. Facebook and its role in manufacturing and sustaining a global social contract, a new “we” is clearly one of the research areas that needs more attention. A new “we” is coming of age in the new age of connectivity and communication with a new outlook toward responsibility and rights at individual and collective levels. Facebook purports to build a new world based on connection and communication which is based on progress and prosperity. However, a fundamental factor and feature of Facebook that needs attention and more research is that people and users are becoming increasingly lonely, separated and independent from each other in this process while connecting and communicating with one another. This new social contract and “we” thus have the new features of the relationship between the human agency and his/her social structures. Cyberspace is the product of human agency and clearly creates and sustains a specific social structure. This research seeks to study the relationship between human agency, changing technical tools of communication and connection and emerging and evolving social structures and social contracts. Bandura’s “social cognitive theory” (2006) rejects a conflict and dichotomy between agency and social structure. As agency helps to build new social structures after destroying the old ones these new structures create and sustain a new social contract and “we” with a new sense of responsibility, obligations, and rights.

A life full of peace has always been a dream for human societies. Peace is still considered as one of the main modern world concerns, because each nation deals with its own kind of violence and war. Therefore, peacemaking has turned into one of the governments’ objectives. Peace has been affected by various factors in all over history. Media and communication technologies are two of the factors that influenced the peacemaking process in the past five decades. They play an important role in the efforts made towards peacemaking because they act as mediators amongst nations, governments, civilizations, organizations, and people. New media have turned into an important factor in the peacemaking process in terms of its widespread effects and extensive capacities. The new media’s importance is on a rise considering its presence in and effects on various aspects of our lives, like political, economic, and social dimensions at sub-national, national and international levels. It has also turned into an important instrument for performing the countries' foreign policies due to its features, along with earning a critical role in peacemaking diplomacy. The media could both be the harbinger of peace and the underlying cause of war with respect to its diverse functions. It could preach peace by sending peace messages inside and outside of the borders, and also by creating a peaceful notion in the people’s minds.