Posts on Iran, new media and citizen journalism

I’ve been inundated with links on how new media is helping us understand what’s going on in Iran after its recently held Presidential elections.

In order to understand the broader context of who uses new media in Iran, why and how, the Berkman Centre’s Mapping Iran’s Online Public is essential reading.

A few articles on new media and the fallout of the Presidential elections in Iran I found genuinely insightful are:

What you need to understand about the riots in Iran and Twitter from Canada’s World

Tehran, Twitter, and Tiananmen by Dan Rather

Tehran, Twitter, and Tiananmen by the Washington Post

The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media by Henry Giroux in Counterpunch

• What you need to understand about the riots in Iran and Twitter from Canada’s World
• Tehran, Twitter, and Tiananmen by Dan Rather
• Iran prepared to track dissent on social networks by the Washington Post
• The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media by Henry Giroux in Counterpunch
• Reading Twitter in Tehran by John Palfrey, Bruce Etling and Robert Faris in the Washington Post

Evgeny Morozov’s Texting Toward Utopia: Does the Internet spread democracy?, which to me is a definitive essay on the pros and cons of the web and Internet augmenting democracy also resonates with the observations in these articles.

In a slightly lighter vein, I have also looked at why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s help in developing IT and e-government in Sri Lanka is urgently needed and would be roundly welcomed.