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UNC at the virtual AEJMC 2020 conference

July 31, 2020

Ten graduate students, 11 faculty members and various alumni will represent the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media Aug. 6-9, 2020, at the 103rd annual Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference, held in a virtual format. These scholars will participate in panel sessions and present authored or co-authored papers.

UNC Hussman faculty and student news and activities at AEJMC 2020 include:

Awards and honors
  • Deb Aikat becomes AEJMC vice president.
  • Susan King to be presented the 2019 Scripps Howard Journalism & Mass Communication Administrator of the Year award.
  • Daniel Riffe to be presented the prestigious Paul J. Deutschmann Award for Excellence in Research, which recognizes a body of significant research over the course of an individual’s career.
  • The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, housed at UNC Hussman, will be honored with the Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy from the AEJMC Commission on the Status of Women.
  • Ph.D. alumna Seoyeon Kim '19 (Alabama) was awarded the Mass Communication and Society Dissertation Award for her dissertation, “Effects of CSR initiative type on consumer responses in relation to company-cause fit and stigmatized industry.”
  • Daniel Kreiss and Shannon McGregor won the Lynda Lee Kaid Best Published Article in Political Communication for their article, "The 'arbiters of what our voters see': Facebook and Google’s struggle with policy, process and enforcement around political advertising."
  • Ph.D. student Alexis Romero Walker won a second-place top student paper award for her paper, "Digital discussions of women members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints: Intimacy in private Facebook groups grounded in motherhood."
  • Ph.D. alumna Shao Chengyuan '19 (University of Tübingen), Ph.D. candidate Kriste Patrow and Tori Ekstrand won first place in the Law and Policy Division Teaching Competition for their paper, “Communication methods and campus expression research for undergraduates."
  • M.A. alumna and incoming Ph.D. student Sydney Nicolla won the Moeller Student Competition Winning Paper for her paper, "Digital feminist activism and the need for male allies: Assessing barriers to male participation in the modern-day women’s movement."
  • Ph.D. students Jasmine Gray, Pablo Miño, Yan Qu, Madhavi Reddi and Alexis Romero Walker were selected for Presidential Diversity and Inclusion Fellowships. UNC Hussman's five fellow selections were the most from any university.
  • Ph.D. alumna Susan Keith '03 will become AEJMC president-elect. She will serve as president in 2021-22 and will be succeeded by Deb Aikat, who was recently elected as 2022-23 president. Aikat will serve as vice president in 2020-21.
Thursday, Aug. 6
  • Surin Chung, Suman Lee and Euirang Lee will present "Balancing between global and local perspective in the public relations industry."
  • Nahyun Kim and Suman Lee will present "The impact of fairness perception on public’s attitudinal and emotional evaluation of an organization."
  • Tori Ekstrand, Kriste Patrow and Shao Chengyuan will present "Campus free expression and student self-silencing: Why students don’t feel comfortable expressing their views."
  • Jeanine Guidry, Nicole O’Donnell, Lucinda Austin and Ioana Coman will present "Stay socially distant and wash your hands: Determining intent for COVID-19 preventive behaviors."
  • Tori Ekstrand will serve on the panel "Political speech on campus/online and marginalized students – preparing for the 2020 election."
  • Sydney Nicolla will present "Digital feminist activism and the need for male allies: Assessing barriers to male participation in the modern-day women’s movement."
  • Lucinda Austin, Adam Saffer and Seoyeon Kim will present "Threat appraisals and emotions in crisis: Examining information seeking and sharing in Hurricane Florence."
Friday, Aug. 7
  • Ph.D. student Farnosh Mazandarani will present "Pornography consumption and attitudes toward sex: A meta-analysis."
  • Ph.D. student Ashley Hedrick will present "'He’s so bad but he does it so well': Interviews with writers of One Direction RPF."
  • Lucinda Austin and Jordan Morehouse '20 (Clemson) will present "Religion in crisis: Examining the impact of religiosity and religious rhetoric in organizational crises."
  • Ph.D. alumnus Justin Blankenship '16 (Auburn), Martin Kifer and Daniel Riffe will present "Disinformation super-highway: Online political information seeking and epistemic political efficacy pre- and post-2016 in the United States."
  • Deb Aikat will serve on the panel "Media literacy in an era of sponsored content, native advertising, and content marketing."
  • Trevor Bell '19 (California State, Long Beach), Seth Noar and Allison Lazard will present "Narratives vs. standard of care: Testing message effectiveness for adolescents' type 1 diabetes management."
  • Mohammad Hossain, Nabila Mushtarin and Deb Aikat will present "'We are in this together!' Use of social media for relationship maintenance among South Asian Diaspora in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic."
  • Alexis Romero Walker will present "Digital discussions of women members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints: Intimacy in private Facebook groups grounded in motherhood."
  • Ph.D. student Teresa Tackett will present “The illusion of gender diversity among advertising practitioners: A textual analysis of award-winning agency websites.”
  • Teresa Tackett will present “Employee engagement: How female advertising agency practitioners avoid burnout and maintain creativity.”
Saturday, Aug. 8
  • Francesca Dillman Carpentier will serve on the panel "Teaching students how to construct theory."
  • Ph.D. candidate Deborah Dwyer will serve on the panel "Scandal, stigma and sexualization: How sharing sensational and sensitive information relates to calls for privacy protection."
  • Ashley Hedrick will present "Media consumption and rape myth acceptance: A meta-analysis."
  • Deb Aikat will serve on the panel "SPJ-AEJMC Google media storytelling workshop."
  • Francesca Dillman Carpentier and Heidi Hennink-Kaminski will serve on the panel "Sharing the knowledge: Successful strategies for mentoring and working with graduate students."
  • Ph.D. student Jasmine Gray and Ph.D. student Meredith Collins will present "Help or hindrance: Examining disability media exposure, stigmatization and support."
  • Deb Aikat will present "Theorizing media agenda setting and agendamelding in the COVID-19 pandemic and the June 2020 protests for racial justice."

More details about this conference can be found on AEJMC's website.