Multiple SJMC Faculty and Students Recognized for Outstanding Research at AEJMC Conference

SJMC faculty and graduate students came away with multiple recognitions for outstanding research and teaching at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Washington D.C., August 5-9.

Lindsay Palmer was awarded the prestigious Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Junior Woman Scholar Award. In addition, her paper on news fixers and ethical listening won the Media Ethics Division’s top prize for professional relevance.

Sue Robinson’s project, “How Journalists Trust Citizens: Building Bridges in a Polarized, Multicultural, Digital World” was the winner of the Newspaper & Online News Division’s 2018-2019 faculty research grant award. Robinson’s panel on teaching in the age of Trump was widely praised on social media.

In the Political Communication Interest Group, UW-Madison papers won three of the six awards including the top paper and the top graduate student paper and the second place graduate student paper. Top paper winners were Jo Lukito, Jiyoun Suk, Yini Zhang, Larisa Doroshenko, Min-Hsin Su, Sang Jung Kim, Yiping Xia and Chris Wells. The paper, “Zero-Day Twitter: How Russian Propaganda Infiltrated the U.S. Hybrid Media System,” also one third place research prize for professional relevance across the entire AEJMC conference.

Top graduate student paper winners in the Political Communication Interest Group were Hyesun Choung, Ayellet Pelled, Yin Wu, Song Wang and Jo Lukito. Second place went to graduate student Ceri Hughes, who also won second place in the Religion and Media Interest Group for another one of his papers. Steven Wang won a third place student award in the Critical and Cultural Studies Division.

Meanwhile, UW grads continue to play important leadership roles as Bryan McLaughlin is the new PCIG head, Aaron Veenstra is the Vice Head, Mallory Perryman is PF&R chair and Mitchell Bard is Teaching chair. Ceri Hughes is the outgoing grad student liaison. Tim Macafee is the outgoing PF&R chair and in the pipeline for future AEJMC PCIG head.

Jianing Li, Jordan Foley and Omar Dumdum received praise for their fact-checking research, Meredith Metzler’s study of social media norms at the U.S. State House was widely feted, as was her performance on a preparing future faculty panel.

A teaching panel Katy Culver sat on was positively discussed around the conference and our department’s co-hosted social was a blast as always. Recent grads living in D.C. such as Catasha Davis (FrameWorks) and Kristin Bialik (Pew) stopped by to share some of the amazing things they are doing in the private sector with their research skills.