What role does digital media play? A buffer against corruption? A platform for causes? An arena for discourse? A tool for propaganda?

How about… all of the above? Tune into a multi-dimensional discussion on the digital media landscape in the face of strongman leaders in power player countries like China, Russia, India, and the U.S. with frontline experts, Emily Parker (Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground), David Folkenflik (NPR), and Noopur Raval (UCI Informatics), moderated by Jeffrey Wasserstrom (UCI Chancellor’s Professor of History). 

To attend, please register here. 

Co-sponsored by the Long Institute and the Forum for the Academy and the Public.   

About the Guests

EMILY PARKER is the author of Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices From the Internet Underground which was published by Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The book tells the stories of Internet activists in China, Cuba and Russia. 

Previously, Emily was a member of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning staff at the U.S. Department of State, where she covered 21st-century statecraft, innovation, and technology. While at State she advised on issues related to Internet freedom and open government. Before her time in government, Emily spent over five years working for The Wall Street Journal, first as a writer in Hong Kong and later as a writer and editor in New York. From 2004 to 2005 she wrote a Wall Street Journal column called "Virtual Possibilities: China and the Internet." She is also a former editor at The New York Times.

Emily is currently digital diplomacy advisor and Future Tense fellow at New America. Emily was the Chief Strategy Officer at Parlio, a Silicon Valley start-up that was co-founded by Egyptian activist and former Google executive Wael Ghonim. In 2016, Parlio was acquired by Quora.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK has been NPR’s media correspondent since 2004. His stories, analyses and commentaries appear on such shows as All Things Considered and Morning Edition and he also writes columns and articles for NPR’s website. Folkenflik is author of Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires and the editor of Page One: Inside the New York Times and the Future of Journalism.

Folkenflik previously covered media and politics for the Baltimore Sun. A frequent commentator in news outlets across the English-speaking world, Folkenflik has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including the 2017 Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism.

NOOPUR RAVAL is a third year PhD student in Informatics at UC Irvine. Her research focuses on evolving technologies and their impact on labor, especially in the developing world. In her past work she studied religious and political media campaigns in North India. She is also an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (Harvard University).

 

JEFFREY WASSERSTROM is Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine, where he edits the Journal of Asian Studies and holds courtesy affiliations with the Law School and the Literary Journalism Program. His most recent books are China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (2010 and 2013 editions), Eight Juxtapositions: China through Imperfect Analogies from Mark Twain to Manchukuo (2016), and, as editor, The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China (2016). In addition to writing for academic journals, he has contributed to many general interest venues, including the New York Times, the TLS, and TIME. He was a co-founder of the China Beat blog and is an advising editor for Los Angeles Review of Books.