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- Stacey Copeland uncovers the historical voices of Canada’s queer media soundscape
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- Professor Ahmed Al-Rawi’s major research projects examine how media narratives shape public discourse on key topics
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- Soundscape Studies Pioneer Barry Truax Receives Honorary Degree from SFU
- Chinese Workers in Capitalist Globalization: Professor Siyuan Yin’s New Book on Migrant Worker Labour Activism in China
- School of Communication Professor Kirsten McAllister Releases New Book "After Redress"
- Four School of Communication Faculty Receive FCAT Excellence Awards
- Professor Sarah Ganter Awarded Trans-Atlantic Partnership Grant to Research the Meanings of Independence in Journalism
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- School of Communication Professor Milena Droumeva Named School Director
- Getting to Know Your CMNS Faculty: Erique Zhang
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- Sarah Christina Ganzon Racialized and Indigenous Scholars Network Talk
- School of Communication Professor Explores the Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada
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- Getting to Know Your CMNS Faculty: Jas Morgan
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- Professors Siyuan Yin, Svitlana Matviyenko, and Karrmen Crey Awarded Insight Development Grants
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- Wendy Chun and Amy Harris, Keynote Speakers
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- Dal Yong Jin Becomes an ICA Fellow
- Protecting Expert Advice for the Public: Promoting Safety and Improved Communications – A Town Hall
- The Medium is the Metaverse: Studying New Media in Virtual Reality
- Peter Anderson: BC floods reveals need for systemic change in emergency management
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- Join the Clubhouse: communication course goes mobile
- Victoria E. Thomas: Seek a research question that sparks your curiosity and challenges your personal ideologies
- Peter Anderson: Fighting fires with better emergency communication
- Andrew Feenberg retires from the School of Communication
- Remembering R. Murray Schafer
- CMNS faculty members receive tri-council grants to support their research
- Cait McKinney receives the 2021 Gertrude J. Robinson Award
- Ellen Balka and UBC researchers take aim at preventing adverse drug events
- Knowledge Mobilizers: Ahmed Al-Rawi
- Enda Brophy receives Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC Academic of the Year award
- Ahmed Al-Rawi: How did Russian and Iranian trolls’ disinformation influence Canadian politics?
- Martin Laba: What I'm learning about remote teaching
- The Digital Democracies Institute launch the DDI Blog
- Ahmed Al-Rawi co-authors The COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Handbook
- Listening to the city: Livable Soundscapes soundwalk research workshop
- Dal Yong Jin receives the title Distinguished SFU Professor
- Labour challenges of food delivery service workers in Metro Vancouver
- Sun-ha Hong: Big Data's promise to solve society's problems falls short
- Welcoming our new School Chairs
- Peter Chow-White: Social media during a crisis and how we stay connected
- Transforming Discourses, Information Flows, and Power because: BLACK LIVES MATTER!
- Communication professors developing tools to tackle online abuse
- Communications professor Adel Iskandar embraces storytelling and active dialogue
- COVID-19 Research Information
- Yuezhi Zhao receives Canada's highest academic honour
- Siyuan Yin: On the intersectional approach to researching global migration
- Steven Malcic: Envision policy frameworks and user tactics to foster an internet that works for us
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- Cait McKinney: The transformative history of LGBTQ communities and their communication needs
- Assistant Professors receive SHRCC Grant
- Robert Anderson receives the 2018 Chris Dagg Award for International Impact
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- School of Communication Alumnus Michael Karlberg Calls for a New Approach to Social Justice in Open-Source Book
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University Lecturer | Associate Director
E: daniel_ahadi@sfu.ca
Room: K8647
Daniel Ahadi
I’m a University Lecturer in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University and an affiliated faculty member at the Digital Democracies Institute. Informed by anti-colonial, feminist, and queer scholarship, my research explores how media, migration, and globalization shape self, identity, and belonging, with particular attention to transnational diasporas and cultural representation. These interests inform my broader work on the relationship between lived experience and knowledge, including how institutions and technologies influence what counts as knowledge and who is recognized as an authority.
I am currently part of Ethnic Media in Canada at a Crossroads: Challenges, Opportunities and Contributions to Canadian Society, a five-year research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The project examines the production and consumption of ethnic media across Canada, the challenges facing the sector, and its contributions to Canadian society.
I have co-edited The Handbook of Ethnic Media in Canada (McGillQueen’s University Press, 2023), with Sherry S. Yu and Ahmed Al-Rawi, and Migration and the Politics of Methodology: Doing Fieldwork, Decentring Power, and Foregrounding Migrants’ Perspectives (Routledge, 2025), with Kirsten Emiko McAllister and Ayaka Yoshimizu.
My current book project, Woman Life Freedom: Emerging Political Epistemologies in Jina’s Aftermath, co-edited with Hoornaz Keshavarzian, is under contract with Fernwood Publishing and is expected to appear in fall 2027 or spring 2028.
Education
- PhD Simon Fraser University (2016)
- MA University of Stockholm (2004)
- BA Simon Fraser University (2002)
CURRENTLY TEACHING
Courses
Fall 2026
Future courses may be subject to change.
daniel teaches
Undergraduate:
- CMNS 110: Introduction to Communication Studies
- CMNS 202: Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods in Communication
- CMNS 362: Evaluation Methods for Applied Communication Research
- CMNS 428: Media Analysis Project Group
- CMNS 432: Political Communication, Public Opinion, and Political Marketing
Graduate:
- CMNS 848: Communication and Global Social Justice
- CMNS 849: Communication Research for Social Change
PUBLICATIONS
Books
- Ahadi, D., Yu, S., & Al-Rawi, A. (2023). The Handbook of Ethnic Media in Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- McAllister, K., Yoshimizu, A., & Ahadi, D. (2025). Migration and the Politics of Methodology: Doing Fieldwork, Decentring Power, and Foregrounding Migrants’ Perspectives. London: Routledge.
- Ahadi, D. and Keshavarzian, H. (Forthcoming, 2025). The Woman, Life, Freedom Movement: A Turning Point in the Struggle for Liberty and Justice in Iran. Fernwood Publishing.
Journal Articles
- Ahadi, D., Pedri, J., & Nichols, D. (2019). Implementing First-Year Experience curriculum in a large lecture course: Opportunities, challanges, and myths. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 49(2), 73-90.
- Yu, S. & Ahadi, D. (2010). Promoting civic engagement through ethic media. PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication. 2 (2), 54-71.
- Ahadi, D. & Murray, C. (2009). Urban mediascapes and multicultural flows: Vancouver’s communication infrastructure. Canadian Journal of Communication, 33 (2), 587-612.
- Ahadi, D. (2009). L’Affaire Hérouxville in context: Conflicting narratives on Islam, Muslim women, and identity. Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research, 2 (3), 241-260.
Book Chapters
- Ahadi, D. (Forthcoming, 2025). Construction of belonging in North Vancouver’s Edgemont Village: Space and the everyday performance of whiteness. In McAllister, K. E., Yoshimizu, A., & Ahadi, D. (Eds.), Migration and the Politics of Methodology: Doing Fieldwork, Decentring Power, and Foregrounding Migrants’ Perspectives. London: Routledge.
- Ahadi, D. (Forthcoming, 2025). Iranian Media in Diaspora and the Exercise of Soft Power. In Ahadi, D. and Keshavarzian, H. (Eds.), The Woman, Life, Freedom Movement: A Turning Point in the Struggle for Liberty and Justice in Iran. Fernwood Publishing.
- Yu, S. and Ahadi, D. (2023). Researching Canadian Ethnic Media: Conceptual and Methodological Inquiries. In Ahadi, D., Yu, S., and Al-Rawi, A. (Eds.), The Handbook of Ethnic Media in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Ahadi, D. (2019). Disrupting the digital: Persian-language community radio in Stockholm and the continued relevance of analogue media in a digital age. In Sherry S. Yu and Matthew Matsaganis (Ed.), Ethnic media in the digital era. Routledge.
- Matsaganis, M. & Ahadi, D. (2018). Ethnic media and acculturation. In Young Yun Kim (Ed.), International Encyclopaedia ofLIntercultural Communication. WileyBlackwell.
- Ahadi, D. (2015). Against all odds: Making underground music in Iran. In Jacqueline Kennelly and Stuart Poyntz (eds.), Phenomenology of youth cultures andLglobalization: Lifeworlds and surplus meaning inLchanging times. London: Routledge.
Policy Reports
- Ahadi, D. (2010). Towards a cross-cultural approach to mental health and counselling in Vancouver: Development of S.U.C.C.E.S.S.’s mental health counselling and support services for immigrant communities. Vancouver: Centre for Policy Research on Culture and Communities. Report to S.U.C.C.E.S.S. & Metropolis (80 pages).
- Murray, C., Yu, S. & Ahadi, D. (2007). Cultural diversity and ethnic media in British Columbia. Vancouver: Centre for Policy Research on Culture and Communities. Report to the Department of Canadian Heritage (144 pages).
research interest
Media representation; post-colonial and anti-colonial theory; critical race studies; queer theory; intersectionality; critcal multiculturalism studies; ethnic media; applied research in curriculum design and theories of learning; qualitative research methods; critical analysis of academic research traditions and methodological practices; the relationship between knowledge/power, voice, and positionality.
GRADUATE SUPERVISION
Ongoing Supervision
Hoornaz Keshavarzian (PhD)
Ali Sayyah (PhD)
Ongoing Committee
Shauna-Kaye Brown (PhD)
Laya Behbahani (PhD)
Completed Supervision
Mozhgan Fazli (MA)
Rockson Obeng (MA)
Paola Sawaya (MA)
Maxine Yeo (MA)
Muyi Yang (MA)
Yichi Tsai (MA)
Completed Committee
Mina Einifar (MA)
Elly Habibullah (MA)
SELECT CONFERENCES
Ahadi, D. (2024). Iranian diasporic media: The rise and fall (and rise again) of ManotoTV. Association for Iranian Studies Conference (AIS). Mexico City, Mexico, August 12-15, 2024.
Ahadi, D. (2023). Confessions of a diasporic mind: Long-distance “nationalists” and transnational political activism among Iranians abroad (Panel organizer and Chair). Middle East Studies Association Conference (MESA). Montreal, Canada, November 2-5, 2023.
Ahadi, D. and Yu, Sherry S. (2023). Ethnic media research in the digital age: The case of Canada course. The Congress of the International Association of Communication and Media Research (IAMCR). Lyon, France, July 9-13, 2023. Awarded top paper in the Media and Diaspora Working Group.
Ahadi, D. (2023). Panel: Body, politics and representation in Iran's “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising (Panel organizer and Chair). Canadian Communication Association Conference (CCA). Toronto, Canada, May 30-June 2, 2023.
Ahadi, D. (2022). Construction of belonging in North Vancouver’s Edgemont Village: Space and the everyday performance of whiteness. Canadian Communication Association Conference (CCA). Calgary, Canada, May 17-20, 2022.
Ahadi, D. (2021). Revisiting ethnic media in Canada: Policies, practices, and integration. Canadian Communication Association Conference (CCA). Edmonton, Canada, June 1-4, 2021.
Ahadi, D. (2021). Migration and the politics of fieldwork: Questioning communication studies. Roundtable at the Canadian Communication Association Conference (CCA). Edmonton, Canada, June 1-4, 2021.