2026 Interest Group Award Winners

Winner(s): Charles Athanasopoulos

Winner(s): Folajimi Kalejaye

Winner(s): David Palmer

Winner(s): Mohammed Rashid, University of Southern Mississippi; Mamunor Rashid, University of Colorado, Boulder; and Md. Sajedul Islam, University of Southern Mississippi

Submission Title: Framing Dissent in South Asia: A Thematic Analysis of Al Jazeera’s Coverage of Youth-Led Movements in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

Winner(s): Henneh Kwaku Kyereh, Chapman University

Submission Title: Let Us Watch How They Die: Documentary Poetic Inquiry As A Critical Health Communication Methodology

Winner(s): Xavier Scruggs

Submission Title: Biden & Trump Black Voter Profile Examined: Understanding the Black Vote through Racial Socialization

Winner(s): Cynthia McLeod

Submission Title: Waves of Memory, Dualities of Identity: The Spirit of Community and Placemaking on Black Twitter

Winner(s): Rochelle Davidson Mhonde

Submission Title: Protective Communication: an Exploratory Mixed Methods Study of Black Parents’ Communication about Sexual Health and Trauma in the Context of Structural Racism

Winner(s): Stephen Spates, Michigan State University; Darius Lana, University of Central Florida; and Karla Cortes, Michigan State University

Submission Title: Moving From Desegregation to DEI Retrenchment: Structural Parallels in the Marginalization of Black Educators in U.S. Educational Institutions

Winner(s): Yaw JP Wiafe

Submission Title: Sonic Rhythm and the Political Notes Played in the Quest for Freedom

Winner(s): Mary Adelua, University of Oklahoma and Patrick Hughes, Texas Tech University

Submission Title: Silenced in the Waiting Room: Race, Communication, and Healthcare Barriers Facing West African Immigrant Patients in the United States

Winner(s): Iheanyi Genius Amaraizu, Northwestern University

Submission Title: The Crisis of the Public Sphere: Digital Border Governance in the Global South as a Site of Epistemic Negotiation

Winner(s): Max Dosser

Submission Title: If it Ain’t Woke, Don’t Fix It: The Revanchism of Bad Object (Anti)-Fans

Winner(s): Emily Winderman

Submission Title: Back-Alley Abortion: A Rhetorical History

Winner(s): Darrion Walker

Submission Title: The Mythic Underpinnings of Originalism

Winner(s): Aubrey Stubaker

Submission Title: Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Material Rhetoric of Becoming Fascist in Parachurch Scouting Organiz

Winner(s): Courtlyn Pippert, University of South Carolina Aiken and Elaine Schnabel, Weber State University

Submission Title: Rewriting the Past in His Image: Faith and Power on the History Channel

Winner(s): Allison Bazaire, Grand Valley State University

Submission Title: Cocreating Museum Spaces: A Postcolonial Approach in the American Midwest

Winner(s): Marya Doerfel, Jennifer Theiss, Maria Venetis, and Kristina Scharp

Submission Title: The Routledge Handbook of Communication and Resilience

Winner(s): Elizabeth Hintz, Kristina Scharp, and Sandra Zambrano

Submission Title: “Qualitative Theorizing and Methodological Advancements,” Journal of Communication (Volume 75, Issue 4, August 2025)

Winner(s): Keri Stephens, Mir Rabby, and Matt McGlone

Submission Title: Communicating safety: The impact of warning signs and messages on reducing risky driving

Winner(s): Dawna I. Ballard

Submission Title: Time by Design

Winner(s): Morgan Badurak, Manship School of Mass Communication; Caley Hewitt, Louisiana State University; Adwoa Baffour, Louisiana State University; Kristina Shustova, Louisiana State University; Madeline Lepisto, Louisiana State University; Hayley Booth, Louisiana State University; Nabila Mushtarin, Louisiana State University; Julia Narh, Louisiana State University; Nildy Chapman-S?nchez, Louisiana State University; Catherine Chen, Louisiana State University; Jeonghyun Lee, Louisiana State University; and Fanny Ramirez, Louisiana State University

Submission Title: “If Something Happens, They’ll Know”: Location Sharing, Peer Networks of Accountability, and What Colleges Can Learn from Student Safety Practices

Winner(s): Kathryn Kelly, Texas A&M University

Submission Title: Identifying Instagram Platform Vernacular Nuance through Systematic Thematic Analysis of #foodporn

Winner(s): Meredith Neville-Shepard

Submission Title: Uniform Choices

Winner(s): Justin Eckstein

Submission Title: Sound Tactics: Auditory Power in Political Protests

Winner(s): Brian Lain

Winner(s): Ryan Corso-Gonzales

Submission Title: Argumentation In The Post-Truth Era, Expanding Post-Dialectics Through An Assemblage Criticism Of The Contemporary Political Apparatus

Winner(s): Meredith Neville-Shepard, University of Arkansas

Submission Title: Move/ment Post-Mortem: An Analysis of Self-Immolation as Argumentation

Winner(s): Ashton Mullen, Truman State University

Submission Title: An Advocate Would, Not an Advocate Should: A Forensic Educator’s Framework in a Volatile First Amendment Climate

Winner(s): Corinne Sugino

Winner(s): Mai Nou Xiong-Gum

Submission Title: Theorizing Refuge as Refusal

Winner(s): Sarah Hae-In Idzik

Submission Title: “Saving Asian Orphans”

Winner(s): Min Wha Han, Eun-Jeong Han, and JongHwa Lee

Submission Title: Displacement, Mobility, and Diversity in Korea

Winner(s): Cheryl L. Nicholas

Winner(s): Jiacheng Liu

Submission Title: Asia Is Burning: Queer Minor Transnationalism and Ballroom Culture in China

Winner(s): Sung Gi Kim, Northwestern University

Submission Title: Land without memories: the myth of ideal nature and neocolonialism in South Korea

Winner(s): Terrie Wong, Penn State University, Brandywine

Submission Title: Moving between restraint and expressions of anger: Challenging Euro-American understandings of resistance in communication interaction

Winner(s): Luke LeFebvre and Leah LeFebvre

Submission Title: The introductory communication course from 1956 to 2016: A meta-synthesis

Winner(s): School of Communication, South Dakota State University (SDSU)

Winner(s): Debipreeta Rahut, University of Mississippi

Submission Title: Shared Authority and Feminist Praxis: Reimagining the Public Speaking Classroom

Winner(s): Jasmine Austin

Winner(s): Danielle Williams, University of South Florida

Submission Title: “Trickster Tales and Anansi Tactics”: How Anansi Stories Functioned as a Form of New World Making in the Caribbean During the Plantation Era

Winner(s): Luis Andrade, Santa Monica College and Robert Gutierrez-Perez, California State University San Marcos

Submission Title: We Are No Better Off Than We Were Before: Critical Self-Reflections on the Pulse Shooting Ten Years After the Incident and the Exigency of Spiritual Activism Movement

Winner(s): Qianshan Weng, Communication University of China and Chaoyi Gao, Xiamen University

Submission Title: Between Imagination and Reality: Narrative Mechanisms of the Impact of Danmei Reading on Attitudes Toward Gay Men in the Chinese Context

Winner(s): Shane T. Moreman

Winner(s): Sabrina Singh

Submission Title: Organizing Dementia: Exploring the Communicative Constitution of Memory Cafes

Winner(s): Howard Giles

Submission Title: Theoretical Approaches to Communicative Practices in the Study of Intergenerational Communication and Aging

Winner(s): Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston

Submission Title: Randia’s Quiet Theatre: Performing Care and Activism with a Romani Elder

Winner(s): Patricia Gettings, University at Albany, SUNY, and Hannah Ball, Chapman University

Submission Title: Examining the Role of Aging Uncertainty and Efficacy in Couples’ Talk about Retirement: An Application and Extension of Psychological Reactance Theory

Winner(s): Yang Chaohong, Peking University (北京大学); Yuan Zehao, Graduate Student; 科伟 左, 陕西师范大学

Submission Title: From the Margins to Connection: Exploring the Significance of Grassroots Digital feedback for the Social Adaptation of the Elderly

Winner(s): Yong Tang

Submission Title: Freedom of Information in China: From Imperial Court Diaries to Open Government Information Regulations

Winner(s): Joshua Guitar, Alejandra Mantilla, CJ Petersen, Natalia Szabla, Ridimerb Diaz-Ramirez, and Elijah Martinez

Submission Title: Concealing Material Facts: Interrogating the Rhetoric of Legalism in (De)Naturalization Discourses

Winner(s): Ama Ofori-Birikorang, Ohio University

Submission Title: Freedom of Expression versus Regulatory Overreach: A Comparative Analysis of License Revocation Cases by Ghana’s National Communication Authority and the United States Federal Communications Commission

Winner(s): William Howe and Ryan Bisel

Submission Title: Veteran Contempt for Civilian Communication Scale: Development and Validation

Winner(s): Steven Wilson, University of South Florida; Olivia Lavin, University of South Florida; Elliot Powell, University of South Florida; Sirrina Martinez, University of South Florida; and Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, Purdue University

Submission Title: A Lifespan Perspective on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Family Resilience, and Military Veteran Reintegration to Civilian Life

Winner(s): Amber Lynn Scott, University of Kentucky and Xun Zhu, University of Kentucky

Submission Title: Uncovering the “Veteran Compassion Tax” Hidden in Medical Crowdfunding Campaigns: Insights from a Collaboration Between Qualitative and Quantitative Scholars

Winner(s): Carol Tschampl-Diesing, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Dawn Braithwaite, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Submission Title: Moving the Greater Military Community Forward: Communication and Privacy Management of Female Veterans, Military Voluntary Kin, and Biolegal Family

Winner(s): Gregory Abel, Texas Tech University

Submission Title: The Operator: Exceptional Warriors, Exceptional Allowances

Winner(s): Muniba Saleem, Ian Hawkins, Stephen Rains, Dana Mastro, and Stewart Coles

Submission Title: Media Depictions of Minority Groups: A Meta-Analytic Review Examining the Effects of Positive and Negative Portrayals on Outgroup Evaluations

Winner(s): Bobi Ivanov, Kimberly Parker, and Josh Compton

Submission Title: The Handbook of Inoculation Theory and Practice

Winner(s): Matthew Grizzard

Winner(s): Olivia Bullock

Winner(s): Monique Turner, Michigan State University; Hee Jung Cho, Michigan State University; Yuetong Du, Michigan State University; Jong In Lim, Michigan State University; Moonsun Jeon, Michigan State University; and Hyungro Yoon, Department of Communication

Submission Title: Measuring Emotional Flow: Assessing Self-Report and Psychophysiological Indicators with Multi-Trait Multi-Measure Methodology

Winner(s): Yidi Zhang, University of California, Santa Barbara

Submission Title: Mapping Methods in Online Hate Research: A Review, Comparison, and Future Directions

Winner(s): Joseph McGlynn and David Cassilo

Submission Title: “I’m Worried They Will Come Back to Haunt Me”: Examining How Retired National Football League Player

Winner(s): Travis Bell and Anne Osborne

Submission Title: Gender Defenders of the Sport Binary

Winner(s): Rikishi Smith-Rey

Submission Title: Developing and Validating a Sport Communication Measure: The Learned Lessons in Sport Scale

Winner(s): Lillian Feder, Purdue University; Chun Shao, Marquette University and Young Kim, Marquette University

Submission Title: How Should Athletes Respond to Underperformance on Social Media? Examining the Effects of Crisis Response Strategies on Reputation and Fans’ Supportive Behaviors Toward Athletes and Teams

Winner(s): Myojung Chung, Northeastern University

Submission Title: The Myths of Algorithmic Understanding: Age, Metacognitive Calibration, and Evaluating Information in Platform-Mediated Environments

Winner(s): Yiqing Ran, University of Utah

Submission Title: When AI Becomes Human: Confucian Ethics and Artificial Moral Agents in Microsoft XiaoIce

Winner(s): Dakota Horn

Winner(s): Joy Jones-Carmack, Stockton University and Hannah Weiser, Stockton University

Submission Title: “It’s Not Worth the Fight”: An Exploratory Qualitative Examination of Political Communication Apprehension and Political Discourse

Winner(s): Sakile Camara, California State University Northridge

Submission Title: Moving From Fragmentation to Infrastructure: A Case Study of Assessment Project Management and AMEE Flow at California State University, Northridge

Winner(s): Diana Ebersole, Kutztown University and Megan O’Byrne, Kutztown University

Submission Title: DATE: Movement from Learning Outcomes to Labor Market: A Focus Group Approach to Program Assessment

Winner(s): Yue Zheng, California State University Northridge and Taehyun Kim, ; Gretchen Macchiarella,

Submission Title: From Good Writers to Strategic Thinkers: How Public Relations Practitioners and Educators Expect and Evaluate Student Competencies

Winner(s): Lance Rintamaki, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Submission Title: The Big Little Project: Demonstrating the Utility of First-Year Peer Mentor Programs in Departmental, Institutional, and Accreditation Assessments

Winner(s): Shelby Broberg

Winner(s): Heather Walters

Submission Title: Understanding the Ethical Concerns of Generative AI: A Practical Guide

Winner(s): Terrell Dionne

Submission Title: Subordinating Plains Indians through Conservation Law

Winner(s): Heather Walters

Winner(s): Heather Walters, Missouri State University

Submission Title: No, they were never your friends: Media ecology ethics and the movement toward AI companions

Winner(s): Ding Yu, Tsinghua University

Submission Title: Love on Trial: The Shifting Ethical Boundaries and Emotional Risk Governance in Human-AI Intimacy

Winner(s): Noor Ghazal Aswad

Submission Title: Searching for Solidarity: Revolutionary Dreams and Radical Social Movements

Winner(s): Ralina Joseph

Winner(s): Charles Athanasopoulos

Submission Title: Black Iconoclasm (2024)

Winner(s): Alexander Morales and Jason Myers

Submission Title: America’s Answer to Communism: Luis Muñoz Marín and Puerto Rican Exemplarity

Winner(s): Mai Nou Xiong-Gum

Submission Title: Theorizing Refuge as Refusal: Ethical World-Making through khuv xim, muaj chaw, and ua ib siab

Winner(s): Christine Choi

Submission Title: Reconfigurations of Trauma: Navigating Tensions and Contradictions of Multimodal Representations of Comfort Women Discourse

Winner(s): Corinne Sugino

Winner(s): Joel Lemuel, California State University Northridge

Submission Title: Geotrauma and the Limits of Disability Recognition in P.P. v Compton Unified School District

Winner(s): Narmin Gezer, Georgia State University

Submission Title: Performative Estrangement: Women’s Representation in Chinese Propaganda Posters (1950s–1980s)

Winner(s): José Ángel Maldonado

Submission Title: Falling to My Death: Vertical Rhetorics in Neoliberal Mexico

Winner(s): Maureen Keeley

Winner(s): Mike Alvarez

Winner(s): Alessandra Seggi

Submission Title: Para/texts for the movie Archie’s Final Project: navigating stigma and profit imperatives to discuss suicide and human connections

Winner(s): Cheyenne Zaremba

Submission Title: Dying to Live Better: The Rhetorical Work of Funerals

Winner(s): Hannah Jones, University of Kentucky and Jennifer Theiss, Rutgers University

Submission Title: “He Worries that I Might Die Too”: A Thematic Co-Occurrence Analysis of Interdependence After Partner/Parental Death

Winner(s): Liming Liu, Arizona State University

Submission Title: Posthumous Movement: Animating the Programmable Mourning Body in China’s AI Mourning Practices

Winner(s): Sean Maulding

Winner(s): Kristen Cole

Winner(s): Charlotte Duff, Georgia State University

Submission Title: Neoliberal Logics and Obscuring the Intersectionality of a Movement: A Content Analysis of the 504 Sit-Ins U.S. Newspaper Coverage

Winner(s): A. Adams, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Submission Title: Authoring validity: Narrating autistic (self) medicalization on TikTok

Winner(s): Gonen Dori Hacohen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Aubrey Armbruster, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Submission Title: One Resource for Creative Resonance: Switching modalities for misalignment

Winner(s): Mervenur Cetin, University of Colorado, Boulder

Submission Title: “ChatGPT Therapy” and Anthropomorphism: Membership Categorization of Human and Non-human

Winner(s): Matthew Ross

Submission Title: Outsider Talk: The Commercial Conspiracism of Info Wars with Alex Jones

Winner(s): Sylvia Sierra

Submission Title: Millennials Talking Media: Creating Intertextual Identities in Everyday Conversation

Winner(s): Miao Yu, Sichuan University

Submission Title: From “Virtual Community” to “Digital Bazaar”: Individual Labor Practices in Community Platforms

Winner(s): Fenglei Ding, Renmin University of China and Yubing Chen, Independent Scholar

Submission Title: The Dividends and Constraints of Language Commodification: Labor Transformation from Transnational Call Centers to Online Education Platforms

Winner(s): Go-Eun Kim

Submission Title: Persuasion in the era of distrust: The infludence of evidence transparency and AI-assistance

Winner(s): Keri Stephens

Submission Title: Preparing for the Extreme Cold: Linking Motivations, Water Infrastructure, and Communication Practices to Protective Actions

Winner(s): Joshua Trey Barnett

Submission Title: Rhetorical Ecologies

Winner(s): Lisa Phillips

Submission Title: Olfactory Rhetoric: Sniffing Out Environmental Problems

Winner(s): Jessica Chaplain, University of Georgia

Submission Title: “Global North Governments, You Owe Us”: Amplifying Climate Justice Movements’ Rhetorical Accounting for Climate in Debt

Winner(s): Zepeng Tong, Indiana University Bloomington

Submission Title: Mapping the Structure of Climate Change Discourse: A Concept Co-occurrence Network Analysis of Press Media

Winner(s): Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston

Submission Title: Randia’s Quiet Theatre: Performing Care and Activism with a Romani Elder

Winner(s): Mark Ward Sr.

Submission Title: Speech Codes in Private, Locally Public, and Communal Speaking

Winner(s): Keith Berry

Submission Title: Notes on Florida: a chaos narrative of everyday gay performances

Winner(s): Nicole Defenbaugh and Patricia Geist-Martin

Submission Title: Autoethnography as Method

Winner(s): Rohan Grover

Submission Title: Consent Theater: A Sociotechnical Analysis of Data Privacy Law in Action

Winner(s): Mike Alvarez

Winner(s): Jimmie Manning, University of Nevada, Reno and Adam Safdi, University of Nevada, Reno

Submission Title: Parallel Journeys Intersected: Narratives of Caregiving across Class Lines

Winner(s): Evangeline Cruz, University of Texas, Austin

Submission Title: “Too American for Mexico. Too Mexican for America. Too Trans for Both”: A Critical Autoethnography on Cultural Dysphoria as a Trans Mexican American

Winner(s): Mackenzie Cato, Kennesaw State University

Submission Title: Learning to Belong: The Hidden Curriculum of Student Groups in Mass Communication Programs

Winner(s): Tianyang Fu, University of Texas, Austin

Submission Title: From Design to Dwelling: An Ethnographic Study of Belonging in Theatre-Based Experiential Teaching and Learning

Winner(s): Kory Floyd and Mark Morman

Submission Title: Widening the Family Circle: New Research on Family Communication

Winner(s): Tamara Afifi

Submission Title: Theory of Resilience and Relational Load

Winner(s): Roselia Mendez Murillo

Winner(s): Zixiao Yang

Submission Title: Navigating Caregiving Challenges: An Intersectional And Mixed-Methods Analysis of Resilience Among Family Cancer Caregivers

Winner(s): Roberta Chevrette, Middle Tennessee State University

Submission Title: Adverse Communication and Otherness: The Afterlives of Suicide Loss and Queer Family Secrets

Winner(s): Sophia Richards, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Brooke Hornberger, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Submission Title: Narrating Adoption Online: Communicated Narrative Sense-Making in TikTok Videos Posted by Adoptees

Winner(s): Bibhushana Poudyal

Submission Title: Gendering South Asia: Rhetorical Non-Phallic Bodies in the Global Capital

Winner(s): Darshana Sreedhar Mini

Submission Title: Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India

Winner(s): Eunbi Lee

Submission Title: Asian massage work as erotic healing: performance (auto)ethnography within Red Canary Song

Winner(s): Leandra Hernandez

Winner(s): Hao Cao, Wuhan University; Amber Wang, Wuhan University; TongFei Nan, Wuhan University; and Yushi Chen, Wuhan University; Xinyao Lu,

Submission Title: Relational discursive repair: Reconciliating female power with gendered scripts in hypogamous relationships

Winner(s): Jacob Smith

Submission Title: A Movement of Return: Transphobia, British Feminism and the Scottish Supreme Court

Winner(s): Bedadyuti Jha, Purdue University and Jeremy Foote

Submission Title: Moved by Reactance: How Users Targeted by Online Hate Exercise Freedom of Expression

Winner(s): Huiqian Lai, Syracuse University

Submission Title: Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher: Witnessing Suppressed Speech as Digital Counterpublicity

Winner(s): David Beyea

Submission Title: The Demographics and Motivations of Tabletop Role-Playing Games

Winner(s): Roxi Yange, Boston University

Submission Title: Virtual Reality as a Cultural Practice: Identity Performance and Commodification in YouTube Gaming

Winner(s): Travis Bell and Anne Osborne

Submission Title: Gender Defenders of the Sport Binary

Winner(s): Jiacheng Liu

Submission Title: Asia Is Burning: Queer Minor Transnationalism and Ballroom Culture in China

Winner(s): Amanda Denes

Submission Title: LGBTQI Sexual Well-Being and Embodiment After Cancer: A Mixed-Methods Study

Winner(s): Andrew Pilny, Joe Bonito, and Aaron Schecter

Submission Title: Coding small group communication with AI

Winner(s): Vincent Russell

Submission Title: Reimagining Democracy: Communication Activism, Social Justice, and Prefiguration in Participatory Budgeting

Winner(s): Young Ji Kim, University of California, Santa Barbara; Anusha Srinivas; Ella Cabigting, University of California, Santa Barbara; Rebecca Foster, University of California, Santa Barbara; and Margot Plunkett, University of California, Santa Barbara

Submission Title: Unlocking “Hidden Assets” in Neurodiverse Teams: How Autistic Individuals Negotiate Autonomy, Anxiety, and Attention in Teamwork

Winner(s): Ika Dai

Submission Title: Decision Making in Dyads: The Role of Generative AI Teammate in Group Brainstorming and Creativity

Winner(s): Ashley Barrett

Winner(s): Shaohai Jiang

Submission Title: Pathway Linking Internet Health Information Seeking to Better Health: A Moderated Mediation Study

Winner(s): Elaine Hsieh and Eric Kramer

Submission Title: Rethinking Culture in Health Communication: Social Interactions as Intercultural Encounters

Winner(s): Yonaira Rivera

Winner(s): Lillie Williamson

Winner(s): Angela Cooke-Jackson

Winner(s): Jeff Niederdeppe

Winner(s): Nancy Harrington

Winner(s): Shirley Olatunji, University of Kansas and Rikki Roscoe, University of Kansas

Submission Title: Moving Through Well-Intentioned Harm: Social Support Barriers and Problematic Integration Among Those Managing Celiac Disease

Winner(s): Thomas Zhang, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Xiaohui Cao, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Sijia Yang, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Submission Title: The Incremental Moral Appeals Framework: Effects of Message Components Across Dual Experimental Paradigms

Winner(s): Sonia Ivancic, University of South Florida; Brianna August-Rae; and Jonathan Baker, Ohio University

Submission Title: Theorizing Risk as an Emergent Sociomaterial Phenomena in (DIY) Hormone Replacement Therapy Narratives

Winner(s): Aurora Occa, University of Kentucky; Kelly McAninch, University of Kentucky; and Lauren Batey, University of Kentucky

Submission Title: When mental health support messaging prompts knowledge but not talk: Examining college students’ mental health discussions

Winner(s): Jessie Gongolo, Ohio University

Submission Title: Embodied Narratives and Body-Aural Rhetoric: Malawian Women’s Experiences with Uterine Fibroids

Winner(s): Rongyi Chen, Peking University (北京大学); Qing Xiao, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University; Jingjia Xiao, University of California San Diego; Zilu Wang, King’s College London; Bingbing Zhang, University of Iowa; and Zhicong Lu, George Mason University

Submission Title: Falling for AI: The Sexual Objectification of Emerging AI-Generated Virtual Influencers and Its Impact on Online Parasocial Relationships

Winner(s): Bismark Owusu-Yeboah, University of Oregon; and Akua Akakpo

Submission Title: Beyond the Hype: Analyzing Reddit Discourse on the Environmental and Social Impacts of AI Data Centers

Winner(s): Samuel Taylor

Winner(s): Paul Leonardi

Submission Title: Building Relational Confidence in Remote and Hybrid Work Arrangements: Novel Ways to Use Digital Technologies to Foster Knowledge Sharing

Winner(s): Qing Huang

Submission Title: The Tech Rule Framework: A Dyadic Longitudinal Analysis of Technology Rules in Marital Relationships

Winner(s): Lane Bradley

Submission Title: Seeking Support from AI or Human: Testing Impression Management Goal as a Mechanism Driving Variation in Support Seeking Messages

Winner(s): Umisha KC, University of Maryland and Anita Atwell Seate, University of Maryland

Submission Title: Teaching under Trump 2.0: Social Identities and Pedagogical Precarity in the Communication Classroom

Winner(s): Shijia Li, Communication University of China

Submission Title: From Knowledge Authority to Learning Co-Creator: Reconceptualizing Instructor Roles in AI-Mediated Instructional Communication

Winner(s): Noor Ghazal- Aswad

Submission Title: Searching for Solidarity

Winner(s): Julia Baah-Hanson Asamoa

Submission Title: Intercultural Science Communication and Citizen Advocacy against Galamsey in Ghana

Winner(s): Soumia Bardhan

Submission Title: Women and revisionist Quranic exegesis: “The Sublime Quran”

Winner(s): Doris Acheme

Winner(s): Felicity Dogbaste

Submission Title: Balancing the scale: A critical discourse on feminist resistance movements in Ghanaian and Nigerian media

Winner(s): Delso De Cassio Batista Junior

Submission Title: Witnessing dreams of liberation: understanding racialised other experiences in psychology classrooms

Winner(s): Godfried Asante, San Diego State University; Matalino Lorenzo; and Rati Kumar, San Diego State University

Submission Title: Branching Narratives for Intercultural Learning: Enhancing Empathy and Agency through Gamified Simulations

Winner(s): Evans Ankrah, Arizona State University

Submission Title: Mpanyinfo and contested power: Elder authority and dominant group communication in Ghana

Winner(s): Margaret Bennett-Brown

Winner(s): John P. Crowley, Amanda Denes, Amy Bleakley, Katie Webber, Devon Geary, Maria DelGreco, Joe Whitt, and Chelsea Guest

Submission Title: The longitudinal influence of supportive messages on stress reactivity and general well-being for LGBTQ+ recipients of hate speech: Comparing the relative effects of verbal person-centered and autonomy support

Winner(s): Jennifer Theiss, Marya Doerfel, Maria Venetis, and Kristina Scharp

Submission Title: The Routledge Handbook of Communication and Resilience

Winner(s): Andy Merolla and Jeff Hall

Submission Title: The Social Biome: How Everyday Communication Connects and Shapes Us

Winner(s): Qing Huang

Submission Title: The Tech Rule Framework: A Dyadic Longitudinal Analysis of Technology Rules in Marital Relationships

Winner(s): Bailey Hughlett

Submission Title: Memorable Messages in Childhood Cancer Narratives: How Communication Shapes Survivors’ Self-Concept, Mortality Views, and Understanding of Their Illness Experience

Winner(s): Nolan Bowers, Ohio University; Elizabeth Hintz, University of Connecticut; Jonathan Baker, Ohio University; and Timothy Betts, Texas Christian University

Submission Title: Understanding Discursive Constructions of Violence in Online Incel Communities

Winner(s): ShuXian Mai, Rutgers University

Submission Title: “I don’t want them to add more concern than there needs to be”: Disclosures Strategies and Responses in Asian American and Immigrant Mental Health Narratives to Family Members

Winner(s): Mikayla Torres, University of Colorado, Boulder

Submission Title: The Rhetorical Work of Outrage: Border Violence and the Myth of Racial Progress

Winner(s): Julia Belmiro, Drexel University

Submission Title: The Modern Human Safari: Ethnographic Reflections on the Spectacle and Reality of Rio’s Favelas.

Winner(s): Sarah Upton

Winner(s): Kristina Ruiz-Mesa

Winner(s): José Maldonado

Winner(s): Michael Tristano

Submission Title: ‘My first words were knock-knock-knock housekeeping’: Queer Femme Brownness, Humour and Whiteness’s Performative Drag

Winner(s): Oscar Mejia and Kent Ono

Submission Title: Migrant Rhetoric as Refugeness

Winner(s): Nancy Molina-Rodgers

Submission Title: I Believe I Can, So We Did: The Use of Social Media as an Effective Tool for Activism for Disadvantaged Groups

Winner(s): Allison Eden, Michigan State University; Manushka Sondhi, Michigan State University; Prathyusha Galinkala, Michigan State University; and Ava Crozier

Submission Title: Memorable Movie Moments: An Analysis of Memorable Scenes in Films

Winner(s): Karyn Riddle, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Bengisu Simsek, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Brule Woods, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Submission Title: Gender Differences in Reactions to Media Depictions of Sexual Violence: A Retrospective Memory Approach

Winner(s): Leah Dajches, New Mexico State University; Olivia Reed, Coastal Carolina University; and Maranda Goke, Murray State University

Submission Title: It Feels Like a Warm Hug:” Conceptualizing and Structuring the Comfort Media Scale Among Young Adults

Winner(s): John Brooks, Brooklyn College, CUNY; Melanie Green, University at Buffalo, SUNY; and Irina Andreeva, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Submission Title: Bearing the Weight of Evidence: Evidence Type in Messages Pertaining to Transgender Individuals

Winner(s): Yiyuan Zhang

Submission Title: Setting the TikTok agenda: The sociotechnical imaginaries of TikTok in news media and public opinions

Winner(s): Kawther Albader, University of Arizona

Submission Title: Political Parasocial Interaction: The Effects of Direct Audience Communication on Perceptions of Politician Authenticity and Voting Intention

Winner(s): Cecilia Sada Garibay, University of Arizona

Submission Title: Young Adults’ Mediation of Younger Siblings’ Media Use: A US-Mexico Study

Winner(s): Matthew Meier, DePauw University

Submission Title: Boys’ Affective Film Preferences as Doing Gender: A Multiverse Analysis

Winner(s): Tara McManus

Winner(s): Amy Whiteside

Submission Title: Victims of Stage and Screen: Parasocial Savior Rhetoric and Coded Social Critique at the Convergence of Celebrity & Conspiracy Cultures

Winner(s): Nazmul Shajib

Submission Title: Navigating Stigma and Privacy: Health-Related Communication Among Bangladeshi Women

Winner(s): Md Mahmudur Rahman, University of Nevada, Reno; Ngozi Oguejiofor, University of Nevada, Reno; and Jimmie Manning, University of Nevada, Reno

Submission Title: Mobile AI as Relational Infrastructure: Translating Meaning and Belonging in International Student Onboarding

Winner(s): Qingwei Wang, Tsinghua University

Submission Title: When Hope Leads: Extending the Theory of Motivated Information Management to First-Year Doctoral Students in China

Winner(s): Zachary R Glowacki

Winner(s): Salome Apkhazishvili

Submission Title: Emotional Intelligence – Humans vs ChatGPT

Winner(s): Alan Crawley, University of California, Santa Barbara and Norah Dunbar, University of California, Santa Barbara

Submission Title: Visual Fireworks: A Computational Measure of the Nonverbal Communication of Passion

Winner(s): Guowei Jian and Gail Fairhurst

Submission Title: The Routledge Handbook of Organizational Leadership Communication

Winner(s): Matthew Weber

Submission Title: Organizational Metrics of Technology Use and the Transparency Paradox

Winner(s): Heewon Kim

Winner(s): Andrew Pilny, Camille Endacott, and Jeff Treem

Submission Title: AI in the Workplace

Winner(s): Heather Zoller

Winner(s): Candice Ruh

Winner(s): Stephanie Dailey

Winner(s): Ignacio Cruz

Winner(s): DaJung Woo, Joshua Barbour, and Katherine Miller

Submission Title: Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes (8th Edition)

Winner(s): Evan Kirksey, University of Missouri

Submission Title: Disability, Gender, and ‘Ideal Work’: A Crip-Centered Approach to the Intersectional Communicology of Stigma

Winner(s): Dron Mandhana, Villanova University

Submission Title: Interrelationships and Spatiotemporal Patterning of Unplanned Conversations: An Examination of Frequency, Length, Type, and Perceived Value

Winner(s): Rebecca Baumler, University of Texas, Austin and Nicholas Palomares, University of Texas, Austin

Submission Title: Risky Resumes: A Reflexive Thematic Analysis of Attitudes Discouraging Pronoun Sharing on Resumes in Reddit Threads

Winner(s): Katherine Scrivani, Rutgers University; Jiawei Fu, Rutgers University; and Katherine Cooper, DePaul University

Submission Title: Listening as Resilience Work: How Nonprofit Organizations Navigate Disruption Under Constraints

Winner(s): Grace Craighead, University of South Florida

Submission Title: Embracing Paradox: How Constructions of Work Move Working Mothers Toward Enrichment

Winner(s): Stephen Agyei, Ohio University; Peace Nwachukwu, Ohio University; James Annan, Ohio University; and Lyzbeth King, Ohio University

Submission Title: Moving Organizational Communication Scholarship Forward: A Content Analysis of Research Trends (2014 – 2024)

Winner(s): Katherine Bunsold, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Submission Title: “I feel pretty comfortable offering you a job”: Workers Practices and Expertise in Career Narrative Storying

Winner(s): Jonathan Vargas, University of South Florida

Submission Title: No Other Land, No Other Way: Grassroots Resistance in Hollywood’s Awards Season

Winner(s): Austin Harrington, Graceland University

Submission Title: Intercultural Communication as Coalition Building Pedagogy: Teaching Across Socially Constructed Divisions in Times of State Harm

Winner(s): Ugochukwu Madu, University of Iowa; Munachim Amah, ; Erdoo Ankwagh, University of Iowa; Uchenna Oluchi Eze, University of Iowa; Linus Egwu, Benue State University; and Amayindi Yakubu, Ahmadu Bello University

Submission Title: Addressing Healthcare Barriers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Through Solidarity Journalism and Stakeholder Partnerships

Winner(s): Ethan Hunter

Submission Title: Performance Matters: An Empirical Study of the Student Learning Outcomes from an Oral Interpretation

Winner(s): Max Gonen

Winner(s): Kara Ketchum, San Francisco State University

Submission Title: Positions of Pedagogy: Movement, Constraint, and Ethical Performance in Post-COVID Dance Education

Winner(s): Traci Lively, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Submission Title: Raise Your Voice: Performing Arts Educators as Muted Groups

Winner(s): Logan Spence, Miami University

Submission Title: The Enthymematic Absurdism of Lou Dobbs’ Dominion Conspiracism

Winner(s): Liliana Herakova, University of Maine; Jennifer Zenovich, California State University East Bay; Marta Lukacovic, Angelo State University; Deniza Mulaj, Department of Mass Communication, Ohio University; and Nadezhda Sotirova, University of Minnesota, Morris

Submission Title: Move/ments Toward a Balkan Place in Communication: Reorienting Theorizing

Winner(s): Yutong Tan, Chengdu Sport University; and Junbo He, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Submission Title: Alienation and Transformation of Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of the Public Sphere in the Digital Age

Winner(s): Mohammad Ala-Uddin, Saint Mary’s College

Submission Title: Communication as Critical Freedom: Toward a Normative Framework for Communicative Justice

Winner(s): Chelsea Butkowski

Submission Title: Expressive Data: Conceptualizing Political Expression Through Social Media Feeds

Winner(s): Randall Fowler

Submission Title: Securing the Prize: Presidential Metaphor and US Intervention in the Persian Gulf

Winner(s): Celeste Wagner

Submission Title: The Patina of Distrust: What People Do with Misinformation

Winner(s): Feiyun Deng, University of Alabama; Cynthia Peacock, University of Alabama; and Matthew Barnidge, University of Florida

Submission Title: What Shapes the U? Partisan Identity, Egocentric Publics, and the Curvilinear Structure of Institutional Trust

Winner(s): Yesim Erdeger, Georgia State University

Submission Title: Individual Full Paper: Beyond the “Radical Left”: How Online Leftist Communities Express Emotion and Navigate Political Events

Winner(s): Cassandra Hightower

Submission Title: In Laboring for Self, Community, and Nation: Rhetorics of Black Women’s Domestic Labor in the White House

Winner(s): Terrell Dionne

Submission Title: In the Spirit of ʔAtatíc̓eʔ: Telling Decolonial Allotment Stories amid Pending Litigation

Winner(s): Noor Ghazal -Aswad

Submission Title: Searching for Solidarity: Revolutionary Dreams and Radical Social Movements

Winner(s): Kate Siegfried, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Submission Title: The No-Wash Protest in Long Kesh Prison: Rhetorics of Ruination and the Colonial Politics of Hygiene

Winner(s): Sam Shear, University of Texas, Austin

Submission Title: Ezra Klein, Charlie Kirk, and the Rhetoric of Mindful Liberalism

Winner(s): Shannon A. Bowen and Elina Erzikova

Submission Title: Handbook of Innovations in Strategic Communication

Winner(s): Joon Soo Lim and Jun Zhang

Submission Title: Stakeholder Engagement and Authenticity in Corporate Social Advocacy: Pathways to Corporate Reputation via Perceived Legitimacy

Winner(s): David Clementson, University of Georgia

Submission Title: When Strategic Communicators Face Scandals: Effects of Pre-Crisis Inoculation and Post-Crisis Mortification on Attitudes and Emotions

Winner(s): Laura Lemon, University of Alabama; Jordan Morehouse, University of Colorado, Boulder; and Yan Qu, University of Maryland

Submission Title: Disengagement by a thousand cuts: Capturing employees’ lived experiences to examine the enactment, factors, and complexities that underpin the dissent into disengagement

Winner(s): Luke Capizzo, Michigan State University; Sarah Aghazadeh, American University; and Natalie Tindall, University of Texas Austin

Submission Title: Parsing the public as a problem: Revisiting the animating question of activism in public relations

Winner(s): Nur Uysal, DePaul University

Submission Title: Contesting DEI: Shareholder Proposals, Financial Communication, and Legitimacy Under Scrutiny

Winner(s): Claudia Bernadette Bawole, University of Alabama

Submission Title: From Peers to Practitioners: Examining Student Ambassador Programs as Public Relations Practice in International Student Recruitment

Winner(s): Mahesha Piyumali,

Submission Title: Reframing the Dialogic Ladder: An Affordance-Mediated Model for Genuine Dialogue in Digital Public Relations

Winner(s): Wenqi Marcus Wu, University of Maryland

Submission Title: “@Grok, is that true?”: Examining AI chatbot’s function for misinformation debunking

Winner(s): Oghenetega Ologbo, Michigan State University

Submission Title: Power, Position, and Storytelling: How Feminist PR Practitioners Shape Women’s Narratives Globally

Winner(s): Dean Kruckeberg

Submission Title: Newsom, D., Turk, J. V., & Kruckeberg, D. (2013). This is PR: The realities of public relations (11th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Winner(s): Ashton Poindexter,

Submission Title: Poison Pill Perturbations: Artificial Intelligence, Adversarial Texts, and Persona 4.1

Winner(s): Amnee Elkhalid

Winner(s): Muniba Saleem and Ismaharif Ismail

Submission Title: Testing the bi-directional influence of media and identity: a longitudinal study of Muslim American

Winner(s): Sarah Kornfield and Sage Mikkelsen

Submission Title: Men Don’t Retreat: Freedom and Sovereignty in Christian Rhetoric

Winner(s): Mark Ward Sr.

Submission Title: Inside Evangelicalism: The Culture of Conservative White Christianity

Winner(s): Lindsay Gagnon

Submission Title: Partners In Death: Introducing an Ethic of Care to Online Funeral Home Rhetoric

Winner(s): Andrea Lopez, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Dominique Brossard, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Submission Title: Bridging Faith and Science: How Religious Leaders Promote Health and Climate Action

Winner(s): Weston Wright, University of South Florida

Submission Title: Witches Vs Patriarchy: How an Online Coven Organizes Around Magick to Enact Resistance

Winner(s): Athar Memon

Winner(s): Karissa Hernandez

Winner(s): Jacqueline Gunning

Submission Title: Cycles of (Dis)engagement

Winner(s): Vivian Kretzschmar

Winner(s): Kathryn Kelly

Winner(s): Luoze Li

Submission Title: From “Passers-by” to “Returnees”: A Study on the Mechanism of Place Identity Transformation of Fans Who Travel to Other Cities to Attend Concerts

Winner(s): Xiyue Wu, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and Xiaoping Zhu, Communication University of China

Submission Title: New Arrivals, New Governance: How a Digital Nomad Community Intervenes in Rural Industry Through Livestreaming — Fieldwork from NCC·Heidao in Yi County, Anhui

Winner(s): Jiajia Deng; Anqi Xie

Submission Title: The Algorithmic Gaze: Symbolic Construction and Power Metaphors of Chinese Scientists in AIGC

Winner(s): Xingyu Pan, Nanjing University

Submission Title: How Do Humans and Technology Negotiate? Techno-Communicability in Satellite News Production

Winner(s): Sophia Hall

Submission Title: Co-mplexities of Identity: Applying Intersectionality to Co-cultural Communication Theory

Winner(s): Emmanual Mensah

Submission Title: Back to the Fireside: How “By the Fireside” Shaped a Generation of Ghanaian Children

Winner(s): Kevin Healey, University of New Hampshire

Submission Title: Eyes Without a Face: A Multimodal Essay on “Tech Bro” Dystopia and Its Survivors

Winner(s): Conner Tomlinson, North Carolina State University

Submission Title: “Through Sound and Motion”: Sonic Power in Villeneuve’s Dune

Winner(s): Elaine Fung

Winner(s): Allie Lucas

Winner(s): Casey Stratton

Winner(s): Courtney Powers

Winner(s): Joe Chesebro, State University of New York at Brockport

Submission Title: Learning to Roll With it in “Wicked” Environments: A Case Study of an Immersive Professional Communication Simulation

Winner(s): Department of Communication at the University of Indianapolis

Winner(s): Melinda Aley, Montana State University, Billings

Submission Title: Seeking Out Social Support and Maintaining a Healthy School-Life Balance: Examining Factors Effecting Student Burnout at a Regional Comprehensive University

Winner(s): Kathryn Lambrecht, Arizona State University

Submission Title: Communicating conservation through park signage: Tracking visual interaction on the move using eye tracking glasses

Winner(s): Luis Contreras, Rutgers University

Submission Title: Bringing Bourdieu to the Algorithmic Trainyard: Graffiti, Platforms, and the Struggle over Visual Capital

Winner(s): Devika Chawla