Grady College graduate students bring home accolades

The summer of 2024 was an exciting time for Grady College as numerous students from the graduate studies program brought home various awards and honors for their hard work and research. 

Jiyoung Yeon, a Ph.D. student, received an AEJMC Mass Communication & Society Division (MCSD) research award for her paper “Spiral of Mocking memes: The Role of Internet Memes in Affecting Self-silencing on the Dark Side of Society.” 

The winning MSCD graduate student research award recipient was given a total of $5,000 to complete the proposed research project. Of this, $2,500 was presented to the recipient(s) at the annual conference Division Award Luncheon. The remaining $2,500 was given after the authors submitted their paper to the Division journal, “Mass Communication and Society.”

In addition to Jiyoung Yeon, several other graduate students have recently been recognized for their work.

Ja Kyung Seo, Ph.D. Candidate, received the 2024 HSAD Global Research Award from the Korean Advertising Society for the paper titled “How does a chatbot with an experiential mind persuade people? The mediating roles of emotions and cognitive absorption.”

Rongting Niu, Ph.D. student, and graduate student team members Sara Castro, Madison Imparato, Grace Short and Ansley Zhao won the Grady College Crisis Communication Think Tank Hedge Fund Award and Grant ($5,000) for a project on “Preparing to Face the Media in Crisis: How to Train Spokespersons Before a Crisis.” 

Lexie Little, Ph.D. student, received the Robert Lance Award for Outstanding Student Research Paper for her paper on “The Reality of a Pseudo-Event: Gone With the Wind Premiere, 1939” from the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA). The paper will be presented at the Oct. 3-5 conference in Pittsburgh.

Eduardo Morales, M.A. student, received the American Journalism Historians Association’s Maurine Beasley Award for Outstanding Paper on Women’s History for his paper on “The Awful and Impressive Example: Wife Beaters and the Whipping Post in American Newspapers, 1904-1906.” The paper will be presented at the Oct. 3-5 conference in Pittsburgh, PA.

Author: Lauren A. Pike, Lauren.pike@uga.edu