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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.

 

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