[Air-l] Couch Award winners announced

[Mark D. Johns]

Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research
http://www.cccsir.org

Contact: Mark D. Johns
Asst. Professor of Communication
Luther College
700 College Drive
Decorah, IA 52101
(563) 387-1347
johnsmar at luther.edu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2004 Couch Award Winners Announced
CEDAR FALLS, IOWA, June 15, 2004 -- The Carl Couch Center for Social and 
Internet Research is pleased to announce the winners of the 2004 
competition for the Carl J. Couch Award for Internet Research. This award 
honors student papers from all disciplines researching various aspects of 
the influence of the Internet on society.
         This year's First Place Couch Award winner is Han Lee, doctoral 
student at University of Illinois at Chicago, for his paper, "Race in 
cyberqueer space: Looking at race in online personal advertisements for men 
seeking men."  Second place was awarded to Shawn McIntosh, doctoral student 
at Rutgers University, for his paper, "Moving Fw: Theoretical perspectives 
on the role of email joke forwarding in maintaining online social 
relationships."  Third place was awarded to Justin Goarcke, masters degree 
student at the University of Northern Iowa, for his paper, "Formation and 
reinforcement of Goth identity online."
         These students will be invited to present their papers at the 
annual international conference of the Association of Internet Researchers 
to be held September 19-22 at the University of Sussex, Brighton, England. 
Winners also receive a cash award to assist with their continuing studies.
         The Couch Award honors the late Carl Couch, long-time professor of 
sociology at the University of Iowa and founder of the so-called "New Iowa 
School" of social research. As a leading proponent of "symbolic 
interactionism," Couch insisted that humans are social actors who construct 
their social world, and not passive objects conforming to social 
expectations. Couch was one of the first scholars to see computer-mediated 
communication not just as another way to transmit information, but as an 
arena in which people exchange symbols and form social interactions.
         The 2004 Couch Award Review Committee was composed of four 
scholars: Mary Chayko of the College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown, 
N.J.; Mark D. Johns of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; Katherine M. Clegg 
Smith of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.; and Lori Kendall of 
the State University of New York at Purchase, N.Y.
         The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research is a 
non-profit organization established to promote the scholarship in 
sociological and communication inquiries begun by Carl Couch. The center 
provides networking opportunities and corroboration information for 
students and scholars who conduct social and Internet research, inspired by 
Couch's work involving qualitative laboratory research on information 
technologies and their impact on society.
         For additional information on the Couch Center or the Couch Award, 
contact Mark D. Johns at johnsmar at luther.edu or Professor Shing-Ling S. 
Chen, University of Northern Iowa, at chen at cccsir.org.
                                 # # #

------
Mark D. Johns, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor of Communication/Linguistics,
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa
http://faculty.luther.edu/~johnsmar/
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"Get the facts first. You can distort them later."
     ---Mark Twain