[Air-L] Robinson wins of 2015 James Carey Award

[Mark D. Johns]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- June 12, 2015

Contact: Dr. Mark D. Johns, Executive Director
Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research
c/o Department of Communication Studies, Luther College
Decorah, Iowa 52101 USA
Tel: (563) 387-1347 email: mjohns at luther.edu

Robinson wins of 2015 James Carey Award

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Hilary C. Robinson, a Ph.D. candidate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and formerly Assistant Professor at
the Vermont Law School, is the winner of the 2015 James W. Carey Media
Research Award competition sponsored by the Carl Couch Center for Social
and Internet Research (www.cccsir.com).
Robinson is author of a paper, Shifted Personhood: Technology,
Organizations, and Law on the Path to Citizens United, to be published
later this year in the journal, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law
and Social Change.
The Carey Award, established in 2004, is presented annually from among
nominated or submitted books or journal articles accepted for publication
in the previous year. The award honors the late Dr. James W. Carey
(1934-2006). Dr. Carey was recognized as one of the North American pioneers
in applying cultural approaches to the study of media technologies.
To be worthy of the award, the work must be of highest quality and employ
Carey's theories to focus on communication and public life, journalism, or
popular culture. The winning entry this year was chosen from an
exceptionally strong field of works submitted by a long list of outstanding
scholars.
The article examines how the legal regulation of technology shapes social
order and provides a model for explaining technology-influenced legal
change. Bringing forward legal aspects of the study of organizations from
the Industrial Age to the Information Age, it seeks to explain how
personhood has “shifted” between organizations and individuals in the
constitutional order, bringing their rights into conflict in new ways. The
paper is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2409717
A member of the review committee commented, "I found Robinson's piece to be
an artful and intellectually exciting blend of Carey's great themes."
The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research is a non-profit
organization established to promote the scholarship of the late Carl J.
Couch and his academic associates. Couch is recognized as the founder of
The New Iowa School in sociological and communication inquiry, and was a
pioneer in the qualitative research of information technologies.
The Center provides networking opportunities for students and scholars who
conduct social and Internet research, inspired by Couch's work.
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