Afghanistan is experiencing an extremely painful and obscurant situation. Our lens touches with desperation and calamity from every dimension we look to it. The country's economy is fragile and its politics is collapsed. The bread table of more than a half population of Afghanistan is empty of bread. Hunger and poverty threaten the lives of millions of people in the country. In addition to many other factors, rising unemployment, low levels of the economy, poor customs and insecurity and instability have led to indigence and penury. The unemployment level is sorely low and lesser individuals who hold work and life are not safe. According to an official US report, attacks on reconstruction missions in Afghanistan have left more than 2,200 people dead and almost 3,000 wounded since 2002. 

The BBC has found that an average of 74 people, including women and children, were killed in domestic conflicts in Afghanistan throughout August 2019. The report has confirmed 611 security incidents in which 2,307 people have died.

Unemployment and destitution have driven thousands of Afghans beyond the geographic reach of Afghanistan. They cross through the "death road" with thousands of pains and hopes to reach their dreamed country. Running away of death and starvation does not put an end to their living anomalies through choosing illegal trafficking route. Those who have entered illegally to the sovereignty of Iran and Turkey have bitter accounts of the difficulties in their agitating journey, saying they have "tasted the pain of death alive".

In recent days, pictures and videos of recent victims have been shared on Afghan social media platforms. The portraits show snow-covered corpses of Afghan youths who have been glaciated in the desire of reaching Iran and Turkey. A man's shivery sobbing could be heard, wailing "what can I say to your parents?" while filming her frozen companions.

Another video, which was filmed during the dangerous and deadly journey, shows a convoy of hundreds of people moving in cold and snowy weather. In the video, people are advised never to choose the route of trafficking to Turkey. The caravan has already buried its 19 companions during the journey. If anyone falls and lags behind the caravan, there is no way but to death.

Getting to Iran and Turkey is not the end of the problem either. They must endure the brutality and torture of the Iranian forces if they get arrested. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an Afghan youth said to me that Iranian border forces had stripped them naked for hours on the cold snow and an Afghan middle-aged woman has died in front of the soldier's eyes as a result of the cold weather. 

Turkey hosts the highest number of Afghan refugees after Syrian refugees in the country. Ardal Guzel, the head of the Erzurum Development Foundation in Turkey, says that refugees walk almost 200-300 kilometres rough roads barefooted to reach Turkey. Referring to the surge of 1.5 million refugees waiting to enter Turkey on the country's eastern border with Iran, Guzel says that his country has no capability of so many refugees.

According to statistics released in recent days, Turkish military forces have arrested more than 150 Afghan workers during a night raid from factories and their living space in Istanbul. The released video shows that Turkish forces arrest refugees from rooftops and under sleeping beds where they have been hidden. Those arrested will be reinstated after some time. Youths who had escaped of unemployment and insecurity, again they should open their arms to gunshots and gunpowder smell in Afghanistan.

M. Zaher Dowran

هر روزی با یک لاف جدیدی می‌آیند و سخن از لعل و شکر می‌زنند. حلقه‌ی همان خودستایی‌ها و رجزخوانی‌های چندین سال پیش هنوز هم  در چرخش است. نه امنیتی برقرار نشد، نه کمیسیون حقیقت‌یابی حقیقت‌ها را برملا کرد، نه معارف با تکنولوژی آراسته شد و نه هم نتیجه و روند انتخابات متفاوت‌تر از گذشته شد.

هنوز هم خیره‌سرانه می‌آیند و لاف از وعده‌های میان تهی می‌کنند، کاش بجای این همه طمطراق، مژده از دستآوردهای تازه بدهند. یاد همان مقوله‌ی معروف می‌افتم که می‌گوید "درد هرکسی به خودش مربوط می‌شود". این‌که فرزندانشان گرم و نرم آسوده اند، فکر می‌کنند همه آسوده اند. غم و درد از دست دادن تمام اعضای فامیل دیگران را با یک محکوم‌نامه‌ی از قبل نوشته شده به راحتی می‌توانند خلاصه کنند.

این حلقه چه زمانی خواهد شکست؟ آیا امیدی است؟

The Chicago School, which marks the first boom in social science in America, was founded in the late 19th century at the University of Chicago. The school placed great emphasis on empirical issues in studying and evaluating social problems. The scholars of the school presented a theoretical concept for the socialization of one's personality that influences communication. They rejected descriptions of human behavioural instincts and instead emphasized the view of symbolic interactionism. According to the Chicago School, society is the main concept of sociology involves communication between individuals. All human communication exhibits a form of message exchange that analyses the impact of two-sided effects on individuals. Human communication provides the social needs of individuals. 

The Chicago School outperformed the sociological school. It came largely from the social sciences, development of empirical research in Chicago influenced not only sociology but also anthropology, social psychology, political sciences and communication. 

Chicago School used quantitative and qualitative research methods in its studies. We can analyse the communication theory of the Chicago School in two periods. The first can be found between 1894 to 1930, when Small and Vincent's "An Introduction to the Study of Society" book was published, following Park's leaving and the School's loss of its effectiveness. The second period is from 1949 to 1959 when the Committee of Communication was formed. (Morva, 2013)

One of the greatest intellectuals in American history, John Dewey, placed communication at the very heart of his philosophical and social concerns, his actual theoretical work on communication is fragmented and, at times, frustratingly difficult if not obscure. Dewey urges "all of the things, communication is most wonderful". 

If we move to the 1940-1960s we can notice a dramatic change in the media studies. The theory of "limited effect approach" has raised and media analysis transformed from a qualitative method to the quantitative methods. Institutions became more eager to invest in research of media platforms and its effects. Robert Park, Louis Wirth, James Carey, Laswell and Lazarsfeld can be named influential figures of the time. The research of this period can be defined as positivist and empirical. Lazarsfeld conducted rating and measurement studies in radio with the support of Rockefeller. Lazarsfeld research on voting behaviour has measured the effect of mass media on people electing their leaders. American sociologist Paul F. Lazarsfeld wrote the people's choice a book which summaries in the 1940 presidential elections in the course of his research, he discovered that we more likely are influenced by other people that the media. He developed the two-step flow theory. If we consider the theory in today's media platform it has its limitations as well. 

It is possible to say findings and studies of the Chicago School and studies carried out in 1940-1960 are different. The Chicago School have used symbolic interactions, pragmatism and guide to sociological studies in communication research. 

There are two dynamics to we need to look at. First one is Chicago school and its understanding of media studies with details. They use symbolic interaction, pragmatism, and guide to sociological studies in communication researches the second one the 1940-1960 communication research has covered media effect studies. 

Mohammad Zaher Dowran