Lori Eason Award for Graduate Student Research
Each year, ComSHER recognizes the top student-authored paper presented in a ComSHER session at the AEJMC annual conference with the Eason Award for Graduate Student Research. This $1,000 award, the largest student award at AEJMC, is named in honor of Lori Eason, a former journalism and University of Texas at Austin doctoral student who passed away in 2002. At the time of her death, Ms. Eason was writing her dissertation on media framing of toxic waste issues. As of 2018, the Eason Award is given to top 3 student-authored papers.
The award endowment was proposed and implemented by Gene Burd, who served on Eason’s dissertation committee along with Max McCombs and the late James Tankard. Burd provided most of the endowment, plus $1,000 for each of the last five years so as to build the principal, which is now one of the largest in AEJMC. The award is also supported by generous donations from: John Beatty, Wayne Danielson, Erica Eason, Lori Eason Estate, Rod Hart, Robert Jensen, Charles and Lynn Massey and sons Jonathan and David, Kathy Olson, Harold and Ellie Sauer, Blair and Denise Richter, and Charles Whitney.
Eason Awardees
2024
First
Rudy Sunrin Kim, University of Maryland, To be or not to be “well”: A concept explication of well-being in communication research.
Second-Place Tie
Hyejin Shin, Lu Fang, and Miran Pyun, Yonsei University, Does social media enrich our lives during COVID-19?: Comparison between open social media and closed social media.
Second-Place Tie
Tameka Shelford, Towson University, Framing climate change in children’s picture books: A qualitative study of authors and illustrators.
Second-Place Tie
Menghan Yin, Minzu University of China, and Qing Xiao, University of Oxford, Active and passive social media use and self-stigmatization among Chinese patients with gynecological disorders: The mediating role of social support.
2023
First
Deborah Danuser, University of Pittsburgh, The creation of an electronic Draw-A-Scientist Test (eDAST) using a social media avatar program.
Second
Jizhou Ye1, Qingrui Li2, Shengting Zheng1, Yu Zheng2, Luxi Zhang1, and Yuyuan Lai1, How does Patient-Centered Communication work? Examining the role of cancer worry and health self-efficacy from 2011-2020.
1 University of Macau; 2 Macau University of Science and Technology
Third
Sohana Nasrin, University of Tampa, Constructing climate change as a critical incident: Journalists in the US embrace paradigm reconsideration.
2022
First
Calvin Cheng, University of Oxford, Exploring the survival of conspiracy theories on social media: A computational approach.
Second
Shawn Domgaard and Hae Yeon Seo, Washington State University, Information literacy and media literacy: The skills needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Third
Felicia Ng, Melvin Tan, Jennifer Li, and Tay Terence, Singapore Management University, News media coverage on end-of-life issues and conversations in Singapore.
2021
First
Sixiao Liu, University at Buffalo, Seeing from the eyes of suffered peers: Using distance-framed narrative to communicate risks related to e-cigarette use.
Second
Robyn Vanherle, KU Leuven, “BFF: Beer Friends Forever” Close friends’ role in adolescents’ sharing of alcohol references on social media.
Third
Evgeniia Belobrovkina, University of Missouri, Cultural competence in health communication: A concept explication.
2020
Nicholas Eng, Jin Chen, Jason Freeman, and Carlina DiRusso, Pennsylvania State University, Testing the efficacy of carbon footprint calculator messaging on climate action: An emotion-as-frames approach.
2019
First
Julie Cannon, Cornell University, Liking and physical attraction offer promising pathways to policy persuasion despite potentially negative narrative influence.
Second
Jinping Wang and Lewen Wei, Pennsylvania State University, Fear and hope, bitter and sweet: Emotion sharing of cancer community on Twitter.
Third
Xizhu Xiao, Washington State University, Follow the heart or the mind? Examining cognitive and affective attitude on HPV vaccination intention.
2018
First
Jeremy Shermak, University of Texas at Austin, Parachuting into a hurricane – Twitter interactions between government entities and the public during hurricane Irma.
Second
Sara Smith-Frigerio, University of Missouri, “You can’t drink oil” – How the Water is Life movement employed risk communication techniques to garner popular support for their cause.
Third
Perry Parks, Michigan State University, From sensation to stigma: Changing standards for suicide coverage in journalism textbooks, 1894-2016.
2017
Chelsea Ratcliff, University of Utah, Do narratives attenuate message resistance? A meta-analysis.
2016
Nicole Lee, Texas Tech University, Testing the effects of dialogic communication on attitudes and behavioral intentions related to polarized and non-polarized scientific issues.
2015
Nathan Rodriguez, University of Kansas, Vaccine hesitant justifications: From narrative transportation to the conflation of expertise.
2014
Jeanine Guidry, Virginia Commonwealth University, On pins and needles: How vaccines are portrayed on Pinterest.
2013
Soojung Kim and Wooyeol Shin, University of Minnesota-Twin-Cities, Understanding American and Korean students’ support for pro-environmental tax policy: The application of the value-belief-norm theory of environmentalism.
2012
Graham Dixon, Cornell University, and Chris Clarke, George Mason University, Heightening uncertainty around certain science: Media coverage, false balance, and the autism-vaccine controversy.
2011
Na Yeon Lee, University of Texas-Austin, The influence of a spin-off of a health division on the content of health news: A comparison of two leading Korean newspapers.
2010
Karen Akerlof, George Mason University, Models: The missing piece in climate change coverage.
Brooke Weberling, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, News framing of autism: Media advocacy, health policy & the combating Autism Act.
2009
Timothy K. F. Fung and Elliott Hillback, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Health risk as a threat to freedom: Exploring the role of psychological reactance in reactions to West Nile virus news coverage.
2008
Sonny Rosenthal, University of Texas-Austin, Matching news frames with audience values: moderating affect related to issues of climate change.
2007
Nicole Smith, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, At the frontiers of faith and science: News media framing of stem cell research.
2006
Anthony Dudo and Michael Dahlstrom, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Reporting on a potential pandemic: A content analysis of Avian influenza newspaper coverage.
2005
Ronald Yaros, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Communicating complex news: Structuring stories to enhance public engagement and understanding of science.
2004
Jessica L. Durfee, University of Utah, Social change and status quo framing effects on risk perception: An exploratory experiment.