[Air-l] Carl Couch Internet Research Award

[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

CEDAR FALLS, IOWA, June 15, 2005 -- The Carl Couch Center for Social and 
Internet Research is pleased to announce the winners of the 2005 
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 Ericka Menchen, a 
graduate student in Communication Studies at the University of Illinois 
at Chicago, for her paper, "Blogger motivations: Power, pull, and 
positive feedback."  Second place was awarded to Daniel A. Menchik and 
Xiaoli Tian, graduate students at The University of Chicago, Department 
of Sociology, for their paper, "The online layer: How email shapes 
social interactions."  Third place was awarded to Matthew Lust, graduate 
student at Southern Utah University, Department of Sociology, for his 
paper, "Virtual Members and Real Interaction: The Internet and Online 
Sociation."
	These students will be invited to present their papers at the annual 
international conference of the Association of Internet Researchers to 
be held October 5-9 in Chicago. 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. 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 2005 Couch Award Review Committee was composed of four scholars: 
Mark D. Johns of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; Katherine M. Clegg 
Smith of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.; Lori Kendall of the 
State University of New York at Purchase, N.Y.; and Jodi O'Brien of 
Seattle University.
	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.
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