The
Herbert Schiller Scholarship
Barcelona/2002
Reported by Graham Murdock
Chairman, Herbert Schiller Award Panel
At the IAMCR conference in Singapore
it was decided to establish a scholarship in memory of Herbert Schiller
to honour both his general contribution to communications scholarship
and his work for the Association. The scholarship, which will be awarded
every two years, is open to any scholar under the age of thirty five at
the time they submit their competition essay and carries a cash prize
together with an engraved metal plaque.
Although Herbert had particular affinities with the Political Economy
Section the prize is open to contributions on any topic covered by the
Association’s general remit. This diversity was reflected in the
submissions this time, which included work on the privatisation of celebrity,
children’s television programming in Hungary and Slovakia, press
coverage of the Unabomber, and entertainment on Indian Television. The
quality of entries was high and the judging panel appointed at the Singapore
conference faced a very difficult task in deciding on a winner. However,
after careful discussion the prize was awarded to Sasha Costanza-Chock
from the University of Pennsylvania for his essay "Mapping the Repertoire
of Electronic Contention," which explores the ways in which social
movements use the internet as a arena of action and intervention. The
judges were unanimous in agreeing that this was an outstanding essay.
A session was set aside within the Political Economy Section programme
for Sasha to present his work to a wider audience of IAMCR members. He
gave a very accomplished performance which met with a very positive response
from the capacity audience. At the General Assembly, he was formally presented
with his winner’s cheque and commemorative plaque by the Association’s
President.
It was widely felt that the prize had got off to a flying start. Its continuation
however will depend on voluntary donations from members and I would ask
all members of the Association to support our younger colleagues firstly
by contributing to the prize fund and secondly by encouraging them to
submit essays to the next round when the call for entries is published
next year.
HOME |