Current Lecture Series: How Iranians “Democratized” the Media

Davar Iran Ardalan is a civic journalist and noted speaker with decades of news gathering and leadership roles in Public Broadcasting. She is currently being featured on Newstilt.

Civic journalism is the belief that journalism must be participatory in nature, allowing the public to engage in issues important to their communities. From community engagement to innovative ways to engage the public online to news programming choices during a crisis, Ardalan was at the forefront of digital innovation at NPR News. Most recently, Ardalan was in charge of Weekend Edition, two of NPR’s most popular newsmagazines. Introducing her own pace and sensibility, Ardalan expanded audience interactivity, integrated social media tools and even encouraged legendary newsman Daniel Schorr to tweet.

In June, 2009, as a Senior Producer at NPR and through her ancestry and connections in Iran, she received hundreds of documents, photos, tweets, emails and status updates from the front lines of the disputed Iranian election.  Those desperate to have their votes counted and their voices heard embraced social media like never before, becoming for a time, the sole outlet for news escaping from Iran. Emerging from the round-ups and riots that shook the nation, Ardalan found a political and social sea-change taking place: unprecedented, direct communication and information that flows over and around any effort to suppress it. One particularly prescient email from Iran read: “Forward this to your friends. You are the media.”

Ardalan has collected the messages that poured out of Iran and structured them with interviews, reportage and photographs, presenting not only a dramatic and important moment in Iran’s political history and history of women’s rights but also a major turning point in the swiftly-changing nature of news gathering and media around the world.  This Spring, Ardalan presents, You Are The Media: How Iranians “Democratized” the Media at events throughout the country including at Columbia University, The Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars and the International Society for Iranian Studies in Los Angeles. Click on Events tab for details.

To book an event with Journalist and Author Davar Ardalan, please Contact The Lavin Agency for speaking fees and availability 617-225-7777 or email: Sally Itterly .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)