Open Competition

1st Place

• Winners: Michelle Amazeen, Arunima Krishna, and Chao "Chris" Su, Boston University
• Project: Apprehensive or Motivational Threat?

2nd Place

• Winners: Rongyi Chen, Central South University; Qing Xiao, Carnegie Mellon University; Shike Lin, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Menghan Yin, UT-Austin; Jingjia Xiao, University of California San Diego; Hua Zhong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Bingbing Zhang, University of Iowa
• Project: When Memes Become Mean: Discrimination Recognition and Group Norms in Adolescent Bullying

3rd Place

• Winners: Hang Lu, University of Michigan
• Project: Correcting the Self with AI: The Effectiveness of Deepfake Self-Debunking in Reducing Misinformation

Moeller Student Paper

1st Place

• Winner: Zhiying (Jenny) Xu, University of Iowa
• Project: How Emotions Drives User Engagement: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Doctor Influencers' Douyin (Chinese TikTok) Video Titles

2nd Place

• Winner: Wen Zeng, University of Southern California; Chandni Kumar; Sinong Zhou; Donggyu Kim, University of Southern California; Magdalayna Curry
• Project: Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation in Mobile MMO: Player Influence Dynamics in Sky: Children of Light

3rd Place

• Winner: Adegbemi Aderemi, University of Oklahoma
• Project: Zoomers and Zoom: How are Gen Z’s communicating about the Opioid Epidemic?

Student Paper

1st Place

• Winner: Menna Elhosary, University of London
• Project: Generative Flames, Ethical Backlash: Analyzing the AI-Generated Visuals that Surrounded the 2025 California Wildfires and Public Sentiment toward Them—A Social Amplification of Risk Perspective

2nd Place

• Winners: ZHANG RuoYu, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Project: Bridging the Knowledge Gap on Autonomous Vehicles: The Roles of Socioeconomic Status, Scientific Literacy, and Social Media Attention Across Knowledge Types

3rd Place

• Winner: Hui Kuang, Nanjing University
• Project: Mediated Family Affection: A Qualitative Study of Smart Devices in Parent-Child Interaction Among Rural Chinese Left-Behind Families

Open Competition

1st Place

• Winners: Gina Masullo and Soojeong Kim, University of Texas at Austin
• Project: “Bogeyman Terms”: Understanding Politically Conservative Americans’ Folk Theories About News Bias

2nd Place

• Winners: Kyle Harris and Erin Willis, University of Colorado at Boulder
• Project: Disability Influencers and Self-Representation: The Intersecting Medical and Social Models of Disability on Instagram

3rd Place

• Winners: Munachim Amah and Rachel Young, University of Iowa
• Project: Identification with Others: An Experimental Study on the Effects of Poverty Exemplars in the News

Moeller Student Paper

1st Place

• Winner: Cherin Park, Korea University
• Project: Exploratory Research into South Korean Indie Musicians’ Online Live Streaming Concerts Experiences

2nd Place

• Winner: Shamira McCray, University of South Carolina
• Project: Police Brutality in the News: A Framing Analysis of Walter Scott’s Murder

3rd Place

• Winner: Isabel Villanueva, University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Project: The Role of Crowdsourced Online Platforms as Public Spheres for Science

Student Paper

1st Place

• Winner: Huacan Liu and Zhiyun Chen, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
• Project: Navigating the Socio-Technical Dynamics of AI Fairness: Insights from the Cognitive-Behavioral Processes of AIGC Moderators

2nd Place

• Winners: Xuan Chen, Zhejiang University; Sihui Yu, City University of Macau; Yueyue Su, Qinghai Normal University; Jiayi Li, Cornell University
• Project: Social Shelter from Digital Garden of Eden: The multipath Impact of School Bullying on Problematic Social Media Use in Chinese College Students

3rd Place

• Winner: Yujing Lin, Tsinghua University
• Project: Close Friends, Closed Voices: Examining the impact of social ties and face on one’s willingness to express on Chinese social media platforms

Open Competition

1st Place

• Winners: Sara Yeo (University of Utah), Michael Cacciatore (University of Georgia), Isabelle Freiling (University of Utah), Leona Su (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Jennifer Shiyue Zhang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Sung In Choi (University of Georgia), Meaghan McKasy (Utah Valley University)
• Project: Knowledge Gaps: Media Attention and Factual, Surveillance, and Perceived Knowledge Among White, Black, and Hispanic Audiences

2nd Place

• Winners: Gyo Hyun Koo, Tom Johnson, Melissa Santillana, Gayoung Jeon (University of Texas at Austin)
• Project: Toxicity of Political Participation and News Cynicism: How Social Media News Use Predicts Disinformation Beliefs and Support for Political Violence

3rd Place

• Winners: Azmat Rasul, Nadia Rahman (Zayed University)
• Project: Meaningfully Entertained: Exploring the Relationship between Exposure to Meaningful Media and Political Engagement

Moeller Student Paper

1st Place

• Winner: Biying Wu-Ouyang (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
• Project: Boosting or Limiting? Examining How FOMO Influences Personal News Curation Through Social Media News Fatigue

Student Paper

1st Place

• Winner: Weiwen Yu (Arizona State University)
• Project: A Dynamic Analysis of Public Opinion on Weibo During the Shanghai Lockdown

2nd Place

• Winners: Hongjie Tang, Yongjie Yue (Tsinghua University)
• Project: Happy Being Me: Unraveling the Effect Process of Appearance-related Social Media Exposure on Body Esteem Among Females with Varying Levels of Trait Self-Objectification

3rd Place

• Winner: Christian Staal Bruun Overgaard (University of Texas at Austin)
• Project: Negative Sentiment, Virality, and Media Bias: A Computational Analysis of News Content on Social Media

Open Competition

• 1^st Place: Reading Prosocial Content in Books and Adolescents’ Prosocial Behavior: From a Developmental Perspective; Pengya Ai, Nanyang Technological University, Wu Li, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Liuning Zhou, Ga Ryeong Kim, University of Southern California
• 2^nd Place: Opinion Extremity Predicted by Media Exposure, Information Processing Mode, and Issue Sophistication regarding U.S.-China Trade Dispute; Yaxin Dai, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Xigen Li, Shanghai University
• 3^rd Place: Down for a Lockdown? Understanding Lockdown Preparedness through a Social Vulnerability Perspective; Zhang Hao Goh, Edson Tandoc Jr, Nanyang Technological University

Student Competition

• 1^st Place: Defining, validating and testing news skepticism: A news literacy approach; Tamar Wilner, Gyo Hyun Koo, Cameron McCann, University of Texas at Austin
• 2^nd Place: A Study on Digital Inclusion of Chinese Rural Older Adults from a Life Course Perspective; Ruimin He, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Huan Zhang, Communication University of China
• 3^rd Place: Pro-Mask or Anti-Mask? A Content Analysis of Online News about the COVID-19; Xinxia Dong, Yi Yin Leong, University at Buffalo

Moeller Competition

• 1^st Place: Moralization in Polarized Debate on COVID-19 Vaccination: Human-AI Collaborative Analysis of Tweets; Ali Zain, University of South Carolina
• 2^nd Place: Building a Sexstainable future: Pornhub, CSR, and the anti-sustainability heterosexual male; Patrick Johnson, University of Iowa
• 3^rd Place: Predicting potential adoption of risky vaping behaviors among college students using the variables of framing and perceived behavioral control; Carl Ciccarelli, University of South Carolina

Open Competition

• 1^st Place: Informational, Infrastructural and Emotional Labor: The Extra Work in a News and Broadband Desert Nick Mathews, University of Minnesota Christopher Ali, Virginia University
• 2^nd Place: Jessica Jones: Exploring Marvel’s Dark Anti-Hero and the Portrayal of Complex Women Characters Newly Paul Gwendelyn Nisbett, University of North Texas
• 3^rd Place: Fake News in the Family: How Family Communication Patterns and Conflict History Affect the Intent to Correct Misinformation among Family Members Franklin Waddell, Chelsea Moss, University of Florida

Student Competition

• 1^st Place: The Mediated Classroom: A Grounded Theory Analysis of Live Streaming Media Affordance and Teaching Context Remodeling from The Perspective of Actor-Network Theory Yefu Qian Chen Li 14 Ruimin He, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China
• 2^nd Place: Cancel Culture and Its Underlying Motivations in Singapore Beerly Tan Gabrielle Lee Rachel Angeline Chua Charlyn Ng, Nanyang Technological University
• 3^rd Place: Women on-screen: Exploring the relationship between consumption of female talent shows and sexism, internalization of beauty ideals, and self-objectification in China Yi Yang Yunyi Hu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Moeller Competition

• 1^st Place: The New Media Normal: Survey-based study of COVID-19 Effects on Motivations to Consume Non-News Media Kate Steward, University of South Carolina
• 2^nd Place: Purpose vs. Mission vs. Vision: Persuasive Appeals and Components in Corporate Statements, Alexis Fitzsimmons Yufan Sunny Qin Eve Heffron, University of Florida

Open Competition

• 1^st Place: “Correcting Vaccine Misinformation: Effects of Source Attributes and Recall on Misinformation Belief and Persuasive Outcomes”
  Michelle Amazeen, Boston University
  Arunima Krishna, Boston University
• 2^nd Place: “Emotional Labor During Disaster Coverage: Exploring Expectations for Emotional Display”
  Gretchen Dworznik-Hoak, Kent State University
• 3^rd Place: “Perceptions vs. Performance: How Routines, Norms, and Values Influence Journalists’ Protest Coverage Decisions”
  Summer Harlow, University of Houston
  Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Student Competition

• 1^st Place: “Hostile Media Perception in the Age of Social Media: The Role of Social Identity”
  Eric Cooks, University of Alabama
• 2^nd Place: “Digital Discussions of Women Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints: Intimacy in Private Facebook Groups Grounded in Motherhood”
  Alexis Romero Walker, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 3^rd Place: “Parental and Peer Mediation in Relation to Adolescents’ Perceptions of On- and Off-screen Risk Behavior
  Anne Sadza, Radboud University

Moeller Competition

• 1^st Place: “Digital Feminist Activism & the Need for Male Allies: Assessing Barriers to Male Participation in the Modern-Day Women’s Movement”
  Sydney Nicolla, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Open Competition

• 1^st Place: “Developing and Validating the Scale of Parental Social Media Mediation Across Child and Parent Samples“
  Liang Chen, Sun Yat-sen University, China
  Shirley Ho, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  May Lwin, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  Lunrui Fu, Sun Yat-sen University, China
• 2^nd Place: “Making Sense of Harvey: An Exploration of How Journalists Find Meaning in Disaster”
  Gretchen Dworznik-Hoak, Kent State University
• 3^rd Place: “Effects of Narrative Political Ads on Message and Candidate Attitudes”
  Fuyuan Shen; Guolan Yang, Jeff Conlin, Pratiti Diddi, Pennsylvania State University

Student Competition

• 1^st Place: “Anyone In their Right Mind Wouldn’t Create It’: Online Community Formation Through Shitposting”
  Yi En Ho, Dion Loh, Tsi Ying Au, Celine Mok; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• 2^nd Place: “A Serial Mediation Model of Media Exposure on Body Shame: The Role of Internalization of Appearance Ideals and Self-Objectification”
  Lin Li, Michigan State University
• 3^rd Place: "Where Local Meets Plethora: Patterns of Media Usage and Community Integration"
  Meredith Metzler, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Moeller Competition

• 1^st Place: “Post Facto: Experimental Test of a Game-Based News Literacy Intervention”
  Tamar Wilner, University of Texas at Austin
• 2^nd Place: “Two Sides of the Bed: Does Mood Affect Consumer Response to Controversial Advertising?”
  Chris Noland, University of South Carolina

Open Competition

• 1^st Place: “The Effects of Constructive Television News Reporting on Prosocial Intentions and Behavior in Children”
  Iris Van Venrooij, Tobias Sachs, Mariska Kleemans, Radboud University
• 2^nd Place: “Errors and Corrections in Digital News Content”
  Kirstie Hettinga, California Lutheran University; Alyssa Appelman, Northern Kentucky University
• 3^rd Place: “Who is to Blame? Analysis of Government and News Media Frames during the 2014 Earthquake in Chile”; Magdalena Saldana, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Student Competition

• 1^st Place: “Asian International Students’ Mass Media Use and Acculturation Strategies: Considering the Effects of Remote Acculturation”
  Lin Li, Michigan State University; Shao Chengyuan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 2^nd Place: “Colorism and Love for Fair Skin: Exploring Digitization’s Effect on India’s Arranged Marriage Matrimonial Ads”
  Dhiman Chattopadhyay, Sriya Chattopadhyay, Bowling Green State University
• 3^rd Place: “Finding A Voice: Newspaper Editors and The Effect of Sexual Assault and Rape News”
  Susan Tebben, Ohio University

Moeller Competition

• 1^st Place: “Nothing but the Facts? Journalistic Objectivity and Media Adjudication of President Trump’s False Claims"
  Deborah Dwyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 2^nd Place: “Effects of Self-Construal and Environmental Consciousness on Green Corporate Social Responsibility Perceptions”
  Nandini Bhalla, University of South CarolinaOpen Competition

Open Competition

• 1^st Place: Frank Waddell, University of Florida for “Ideological Objectivity or Violated Expectations? Testing the Effects of Machine Attribution on News Evaluation”

Student Competition

• 1^st Place: Jiyoun-Suk, University of Wisconsin-Madison for “The ‘Primed’ Third-Person Effect of Racial Minority Portrayals in Media”

Moeller Competition

• 1^st Place: Won-ki Moon & Joon Kim, University of South Carolina for “Who is Responsible for Low-Fertility in South Korea?”

Open Competition

• 1^st Place: Collin Berke, Travis Loof, Rebecca Densley, Eric Rasmussen, Justin Keene, Texas Tech University for “Co-viewing as Social Facilitation of Children’s Cognitive Processing of Educational Television Content.”

Student Competition

• 1^st Place: Nathian Rodriguez, Texas Tech University, for “Negotiation of Sexual Identity in Gay On-Air Talent on West Texas Mainstream Media.”

Moeller Competition

• 1^st Place: Keonyoung Park & Hyejin Kim, University of Minnesota for “Social Media for Socialization? The Mediation Role of Social Media on the Relationship be- tween Sex and Traditional Gender Values.”