Award Includes Cash Prize of $1,000. Now in its ninth year, the News Audience Research Paper Award recognizes the best AEJMC conference paper that researches the audience for news. Accepted 2022 AEJMC conference papers about some aspect of the news audience are automatically eligible to be reviewed by a specially appointed committee for this important award. In addition to receiving a certificate, the author(s) of the winning paper will receive a $1,000 cash prize.
There is no separate submission process for this award. Papers on the news audience should be submitted to the division, commission or interest group that is the best fit for the paper. After the review process has been completed by each group, accepted papers will go through a separate review process for the News Audience Research Paper Award.
Eligibility. Research papers eligible for this award should use audience-focused methodologies to provide insight about news audience engagement, attitudes, uses and gratifications, avoidances, socialization, political participation, etc. They may focus on news audiences in general, news audiences by platform, content or mobile device, news audiences defined by age, race, ethnicity, gender, education, generation, political party, ideology, or other social characteristic. New models and theories that provide insight into the audience for news are encouraged.
Background. Created and funded by AEJMC Past President Paula Poindexter as a complement to her 2013-2014 presidential initiative News Engagement Day, which is held annually on the first Tuesday in October, the award’s goal is to encourage more research and discussion about the news audience. The papers are judged on their contributions to understanding the news audience as well as their research design and execution, theoretical grounding, implications for the news industry, and quality of writing. A special thanks is extended to the reviewers of this year’s papers.
2021 Winning Paper. Congratulations to: “Change is the only constant: Young adults as platform architects and the consequences for news” by Kjerstin Thorson and Ava Francesca Battocchio, Michigan State University.
