In this two-day lesson, students will look at the phenomenon of citizen journalism and the role it played in Iran during massive public protests that followed the June 12, 2009 presidential election. They will examine how the use of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are filling in the news void left after the Iranian government barred mainstream media coverage after the election. Students will take a critical look at the effectiveness and reliability of this new media on reporting the news and promoting political activism in Iran. They will then develop their own citizen journalism report. This lesson provides students ample background information on the historic roots of a free press and the use of citizen journalism. Teachers can present this information in ways and to whatever degree they feel appropriate for their students and their class schedule.

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian educator and philosopher, coined the phrase “The Medium is the Message.” He meant that it’s not so much the content in a message that is important, but the medium or way in which it is carried. Watching an event with sound and audio has greater impact than reading about the same account. One of the earliest examples of this in American media is Paul Revere’s etching of the Boston Massacre which shows “defenseless” colonists being shot dead in the streets of Boston by members of the British army. If one looks closely, it even looks like Mr. Revere placed slight smiles (or at least expressions of indifference) on the faces of the British soldiers.

Fast-forward to the 20th century and televisions coverage of the Vietnam War and the anti-war protests at home. Images sent to Americans’ living rooms of seemingly endless combat and senseless brutality generated an impression of a military policy in trouble. It also presented an impression of a political party in disarray at the 1968 Democratic National Convention as police clashed with anti-war protesters in the streets of Chicago. Young people chanted, “The whole world is watching!” and a nation asked, “How could the party in power continue to lead if it couldn’t control its own convention?” Fast-forward again to Iran after the June 12, 2009 presidential election. Many Iranians believed there was election fraud and took to the streets in several of Iran’s major cities. The Iranian government reacted to public outrage and placed a news blackout on foreign media outlets and clamped down further on its own mass media. Public protests took place day after day with increasing size and intensity. The Iranian government and its surrogates reacted with brutal, but seemingly constrained force, possibly trying to avoid another Tiananmen Square massacre. Throughout the period “citizen journalists” using the “new media” sent pictures and videos out of Iran to a anxious and alarmed world. The Iranian government tried to block all cell phone and Internet use, but wasn’t technologically sophisticated enough to completely block out communication from cell phones and computers through portals like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. In the streets of Teheran, the killing of a young woman known to the world as “Neta,” was caught on a cell phone camera. The image of her bleeding body, gasping its last breath went “viral” as hundreds and then thousands of cell phones and computers sent the story to millions of viewers long before the mainstream media ever got to the story.

Day 1 Procedure:
Opening Activity:

1. Divide students into small groups of 4-5 students each and distribute handout Core Values of American Constitutional Democracy. Have students review the handout and then address the questions at the end in their small group.

Activity Two:

After viewing the segment and reading the transcripts, have students discuss the questions on the handout in their small groups. Day 2 Procedure:

1. Divide the class into two groups.
2. Regroup students into groups of four with two members of each of the two original groups in the new groups.
3. Have students discuss their findings following the group analysis questions on their handouts.

National Standards

Civics

World History

• Standard 44: Understands the search for community, stability, and peace in an interdependent world
• Standard 46: Understands long-term changes and recurring patterns in world history

Language Arts/Writing

• Standard 1: Uses the general skills and strategies of eh writing process
• Standard 3: Uses grammatical and mechanical conventions in writing compositions
• Standard 4: Gathers and uses information for research purposes
• Standard 7: Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts
• Standard 9: uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media