The Peabody Student Honor Board allows University of Georgia students the opportunity to be involved with the Peabody Awards, which honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and online media.
The students serve as production assistants for the awards ceremony in New York, as ambassadors for the university community, and as judges for a separate but related awards program called the Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Award.
For the Futures of Media Award, which fall under the Peabody Media Center, students review and judge digital storytelling and choose top winners for stories in digital spaces. As part of the judging process, the students take a “New Digital Narratives” course, refining their critical-thinking and deliberation skills through examination of emerging media forms.
“It’s about as close to experiential learning as you’ll find, in that the students are studying it and then they get to meet and interface with the producers of that media,” said Jeffrey P. Jones, executive director of the Peabody Awards, who teaches the class. “Many of the students have reported what a rich experience it was for them.”
See a glimpse of what the Peabody Student Honor Board experience is like in the video below, which features interviews from students during the May 2017 Peabody events in New York City.
Here is your chance to join our team in celebrating Stories That Matter. The Board evaluates programs and selects winners for the annual PEABODY FUTURES OF MEDIA AWARD, a distinction that recognizes innovation and excellence in digital programming. Members will serve as Peabody Student Ambassadors and will work at all Peabody-hosted events, including the annual awards ceremony and Futures of Media Luncheon in 2019.
APPLICATION PROCESS
ELIGIBILITY
All University of Georgia undergraduate students are eligible to apply. All majors welcome.
Students are REQUIRED to take the Entertainment & Media Studies course (EMST 5990, “New Digital Narratives,” 3 hours) specially designated for this board in the Spring 2019 semester. Class meeting time TBA. No exceptions.
Students MUST be able to travel and be in New York for both events – mid-May dates TBA.
Step One:
Select one digital program (web, interactive, or mobile) that you think achieves two things:
Excellence in Storytelling. Peabody’s tagline is Stories That Matter. Ask yourself: What kind of issues – public, creative, political, educational, etc. – does it concern? Who is it speaking to? Why is it important for us to reflect on these? To learn more about past Peabody winners: Peabodyawards.com/awards.
Innovation in the digital space. Remember, innovation means doing something new and creative. Stand out with your choice! Avoid platforms/programs like Snapchat or an app that contains the same content as a brand’s website or print version. Is this a new story or is it being told in a new form of media that enhances how the story is experienced?
Write a 2-page argument in support of your selection. Feel free to include visuals, graphics, and links. On this document, please include:(1) Your name, year in school, major/college (or intended direction), and (2) the program/platform title and a link to where it can be found.
Step Three:
Submit your entry by email at peabody@uga.edu with the subject line: Peabody Student Honor Board.
Selection Process:
We will evaluate all entries and invite up to 16 students to participate in the next round of the selection process. Finalists will be asked to make a 7-min. in-person presentation in support of their selected programs. Up to 8 students will be selected to join the board.
Contact us at peabody@uga.edu or (706) 542-3787 with any questions.
Deadline for submission is Friday, October 5, 2018, at 5:00pm ET.
Interview requests will be sent no later than October 15, 2018.
Spring 2016 Peabody Student Honor Board members Leighton Rowell (center) and Kara Wexler (ABJ ’16), talk with Futures of Media winner Lillian LaSalle after last year’s Futures of Media ceremony.
Where else other than Grady College and the University of Georgia can students work closely on an internationally-respected awards program that is nationally broadcast on television?
Now in its third year, the Peabody Student Honor Board allows UGA students the opportunity to be involved with the Peabody Awards. The students serve as production assistants for the awards ceremony in New York, as ambassadors for the university community, and as judges for a separate but related awards program called the Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Award. For the Futures of Media Award, which fall under the Peabody Media Center, students review and judge digital storytelling and choose top winners for stories in digital spaces.
“From my own personal experience, it’s the coolest thing I’ve done, by far, at UGA,” said third-year honor board member Alex Estroff (ABJ ’17), a journalism graduate from Marietta, Georgia.
The sixteen students are selected based on a rigorous application process each fall and are now required to take a class in the Department of Entertainment and Media Studies, New Digital Narratives, taught by Jones in the spring. While any UGA student can apply, a majority of the Student Honor Board members this year are Grady College students.
Jeff Jones, director of the Peabody Awards, taught the first New Digital Narratives class this past spring.
Jones explains that the first part of the class is pedagogical, with discussions about immersive media, video games, podcasts, webisodes, social media stars, virtual reality, interactive documentary and other similar topics. The second half of the class is the process of reviewing and selecting winners for the award.
“By taking the class, I think students are able to apply more complex analytics in their judgments, more than just ‘I like that’ or ‘I don’t like that,’” Jones said of the process.
Shelby Silverman, a third-year Entertainment and Media Studies graduate (ABJ ’17), agrees. “The give and take and respectful debates are what led to us to award, what is in my opinion, an incredible group of media projects that truly do represent to future of media.”
It’s the first-hand experience of working with the digital, storytelling and media industries, that has taught the biggest lessons to the students.
“It’s a great example of experiential learning,” Jones continued. “What we do is no longer just theoretical. We are applying what we learned to evaluate what constitutes the more innovative and cutting-edge type of stories in digital media today.”
Silverman continues that her involvement with the team has taught her important skills. “Being involved with the Peabody Student Honor Board has added real-world media industry experience while still being under the guidance of the incredible team at the Peabody Awards,” she said. “It has brought valuable leadership and teamwork experience to my time at UGA.”
The Futures of Media Awards will distributed at a luncheon ceremony on May 19, the day before the Peabody Awards Ceremony in New York City.
This year’s Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media winners include:
Annual honor recognizes innovative digital storytelling in multiple platforms; winners to be celebrated at NYC luncheon on May 19
The Peabody Media Center and the University of Georgia have named six winners of this year’s Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Awards for outstanding digital storytelling released in 2016. The programs use 3-D modeling, virtual reality, interactive websites, and video games to address stories covering a range of issues, from torture in prison and childhood cancer to transgender dating and identity.
In its second year, the award is the result of a partnership between Peabody and Facebook. The award is given to outstanding stories in digital spaces as judged by a group of 16 Peabody honor student fellows, under the guidance of the Peabody Awards program, based at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships at Facebook, will host the Futures of Media Awards.
“This year’s winners push the boundaries of how digital storytelling can be done in extremely compelling and innovative ways,” said Jeffrey Jones, director of the Peabody Awards and Peabody Media Center. “It is exciting to see the new possibilities for bringing meaningful stories to light through the ever-changing affordances of digital technologies, and we are happy to recognize what we see as the best stories being told on these platforms.”
The winners will be celebrated at a luncheon on May 19 at Hotel Eventi in New York City. Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships at Facebook, will serve as host for the event, which will be streamed via Facebook Live.
Brown has nearly 20 years of experience in journalism, most recently as an award-winning anchor and correspondent for NBC News and CNN. At CNN, she anchored a weekday primetime news program from 2007-2010 focusing on politics. During her 11-year tenure with NBC, she co-anchored the weekend edition of “TODAY” from 2003-2007 and served as White House correspondent during President George W. Bush’s first term.
The 2016 Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Awards are (in alpha order by category):
Multimedia, creative graphics, and an intuitive interface explore an investigation into doctors and sexual abuse, setting a new standard for a traditional medium that is increasingly shifting into digital spaces.
INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY
“Saydnaya” (Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture)
Architectural and acoustic modeling provide an unprecedented look—and feel—inside an infamous torture prison in northern Syria while raising awareness in an attempt to end the brutal practice.
The Futures of Media Awards are selected by the Peabody Student Honor Board, pictured here at last year’s ceremony.
MOBILE
“Phallaina” (Small Bang Studio, France Télévisions Nouvelles Ecritures, and Oikos Agency)
A unique interpretation of the graphic novel that seamlessly transfers an old art form into digital space through parallax scrolling, mind-bending panel transitions, and creative sound design.
The true, tragic story of a 4-year-old’s lifelong battle with the disease told in a beautifully poetic gameplay environment. Archival voice recordings and interactive exploration guide players through artful reinterpretations of real events for a lesson in empathy and strength.
VIRTUAL REALITY/360
“Pearl” (Google Spotlight Stories with Evil Eye Pictures)
Using innovative 360-degree format and animation, viewers are fully immersed into the heartwarming story—and theme song—of a father-daughter duo chasing their dreams as told from the perspective of their car.
An illuminating web series with narrative weight usually reserved for lengthier formats, “Her Story” follows two trans women navigating relationships and identity in Los Angeles. The result is in an important reframing of trans representation in media.
About Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Awards
The Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Awards honor groundbreaking digital narratives and the technologies used to tell these stories. With a spirit of innovation at the core of both Peabody and Facebook, the organizations came together in 2015 to celebrate the most powerful narratives in an ever-changing digital landscape. Honorees are selected by the Peabody Student Honor Board and are deemed to have told a story that matters: a story that inspires empathy around the human condition, shapes our understanding of the world, transforms how we address important societal issues, and takes a chance with what it’s saying and how it’s told.
