Human Communication and Technology Division
article type:
Interest Group Awards
2025
Listed here are awards given by the Interest Group to its members. Interests Groups are smaller communities within NCA’s large membership that provide a range of resources including networking opportunities, Annual Convention programming, leadership opportunities, awards, and specialized information dissemination channels, among others.
Top Paper Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Yang Chen, Zhuolun Ren, Lihua Du, & XING LYU, “Will I be manipulated by algorithmic gaslight? Dual ghost of algorithmic censorship, users’ self-censorship, and daily algorithmic auditing on social media” |
| 2024 | Samuel Hardman Taylor & Y. Anthony Chen, ” The Lonely Algorithm Problem: The Relationship Between Algorithmic Personalization and Social Connectedness on TikTok” |
| 2023 | Erin M. Sumner, Audrey Herrera, and Artemio Ramirez, “Video Chat and In Person Modality Switches in Online Dating: An Exploration of Modality Switching Motives, Modality Expansion, Channel Choice, and Outcomes” |
| 2022 | Andrew High, Erin Ruppel, Bree McEwan, & John Caughlin, “Computer-Mediated Communication and Well-Being in the Age of Social Media: A Systematic Review” |
| 2021 | Haley R. Hatfield, Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn, Matthew Klein, & Kristine Nowak;”Confronting Whiteness through Virtual Humans: A Systematic Review of 20 Years of Research in Prejudice and Racial Bias Using Virtual Environments” |
| 2021 | Lucas J. Youngvorst & Andrew C. High;”The Mediating Role of Affordances on the Relationship Between Communication Channel and Perceptions of Supportive Conversations” |
| 2021 | Jeffrey A. Hall, Annie Julia Santarelli, & Jennifer L Christofferson;”Digital Stress as a Mediator of the Relationship between Mobile and Social Media Use and Psychological Functioning” |
| 2021 | Won-Ki Moon, S. Mo Jones-Jang, & Myojung Chung;”Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) Reduce Partisan Motivated Reasoning? Evaluating the Credibility of Fact-checking Messages from Human, AI, and User Consensus” |
| 2020 | Natalie Pennington and Jeffrey Hall, “Does Facebook-Enabled Communication Influence Weak Tie Relationships Over Time? A Longitudinal Investigation into Mediated Relationship Maintenance” |
| 2019 | Emily Cramer, Bryan Jenkins, and Yoonmo Sang, “What’s Behind that Screenshot? Privacy Windows and Capturing Data on Screen” |
| 2018 | Jeeyun Oh, Jung Ah Lee, Sebitha Sudarshan, & Guan Soon Khoo, “Interactive interface creates sense of community: The combinatory effects of modality and source interactivity on user engagement” |
| 2016 | Jian Raymond Liu, Michael Stefanone, and Jessica Covert, “Source-Target Relationship and Specificity of Other-Generated Information: An Extension of Warranting Theory” |
| 2015 | Bree McEwan and Jesse Fox, “Why Communication Technologies Matter: Developing a Scale to Assess the Perceived Social Affordances of Communication Channels” |
| 2014 | Craig Scott, Punit Dadlani, Maria Dwyer, Surabhi Sahay, and Erin McKinely, “Technologies of Concealment: Appropriateness, Effectiveness, and Motivations for Hiding Organizational Identity” |
| 2013 | Young Shin Lim and Brandon Van Der Heide, “All Things Considered: Perceived Credibility of Online Consumer Reviews” |
| 2012 | Rebecca DiVerniero and Angela Hosek, “Twitter as a Classroom Tool: Exploring the Use, Benefits, and Downfalls from the Perspectives of Instructors and Students” |
Top Student Paper Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Yichu Yang, “Navigating Relational Uncertainty through Songsan Guanxi: Chinese Youth’s Construction of Expandable Loose Ties on Dating Apps” |
| 2024 | Yixiao Sun, Yunjie Fei, & Chunyan Yu, “Resource Exchange, Perceived Social Support, Companionship and Intimacy: Characterizing the Social Relationship Between Users and ChatGPT” |
| 2023 | Alexandra Leah Grimm, “Affective Aliens in Virtual Reality: Understanding PETA’s Abduction Campaign” |
| 2022 | Yifei Lu & Yi Sun, “Mobility and Non-Mobility: How Do Cell Phones Affect the Private Rhythm of People in the Bedroom” |
| 2021 | Nitzan Navick & Allison P. Mazur;”The Role of Technological Affordances in Cybersexual Harassment: Additional Opportunities, Added Consequences, and Antiquated Outcomes” |
| 2021 | Xindi Zhao & Xiaojing Wong”Listen to the Crowd: The Effects of Danmaku Videos on Viewers’ Perceptions” |
| 2021 | Rebecca Frazer;”Experimental Operationalizations of Anthropomorphism in HCI Contexts: A Systematic Review” |
| 2021 | Sharalyn Bechtel Manzanares;”Virtual Patriarchy: Gender Bias in Smart Speakers Alexa and Google” |
| 2020 | Riley Richards, “The Role of Multiple Channel Verbal Affection in Dyadic Romantic Relationships” |
| 2019 | Kati Sudnick, “Empathy Within and Without: The Survival of Interpersonal Communication in a Digital Age” |
| 2018 | Valerie Rubinsky, “A Communication interdependence perspective of sexual communication and technology use in BDSM relationships” |
| 2015 | Ningxin Wang, David Roache, and Kimberly Pusteri, “The Interconnections of Multiple Communication Modes in Long-Distance Dating Relationships (LDDRs): Examining the Communicative Interdependence Perspective in Different Relational Contexts” |
| 2014 | Amanda Guzman, “From Channel to Communicator: Rethinking the Role of Technology in Communication” |
| 2013 | Jian Rui, Jessica Covert, and Tanuka Mukherjee, “Social Capital: Network Structure, SNS Use, and Offline Activities” |
| 2012 | David Askay, “Silence in the Crowd: The Spiral of Silence Contributing to the Positive Bias of Opinions in an Online Review System” |
Top Dissertation Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2025 | America Edwards, “Maintaining Ties in the Digital Age: How Self-Disclosure and Co-Rumination Shape Mother-Daughter Communication Amidst the College Transition” |
| 2024 | Marco Dehnert, ” Human-Machine Relationality and the Illusion of Being Cared For: An In-Depth Exploration of Relationships with Communicative Machines, and was successfully defended in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University” |
| 2023 | Jess Dominguez, “Memes & Relational Communication: The Use of Idiomatic Utterances With Interpersonal Media” |
| 2022 | Mohammad Ala-Uddin, “Reclaiming the ‘C’ in ICT4D: A Critical Examination of Discursive (Un)Freedoms in Digital State Policy and News Media of Bangladesh and Norway” |
| 2021 | Miriam Brinberg;”Romantic Relationship Development & Text Messaging Communication of New Couples” |
| 2020 | Bingjie Liu, “Effects of Agency Locus and Transparency of Artificial Intelligence: Uncertainty Reduction and Emerging Mind” |
| 2019 | Edmund W. J. Lee, “#Hooked? Extending the Social Cognitive Model in Examining the Antecedents of Problematic Social Network Sites Use Among Singaporean Adolescents and Adults” |
| 2018 | Maura R. Chenney |
| 2016 | Michael Hanus |
| 2015 | Liesel Sharabi, “Modality switching in online dating: Identifying the communicative factors that make the transition from an online to an offline relationship more or less successful” |
| 2014 | Stephanie Robbins |
| 2013 | Erin M. Bryant |
Top Thesis Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Lilli Roman, ” ‘Oh, so that’s what’s wrong with me’: Examining sensitive self-disclosure, self-diagnosis, and hazardous communication among mental health communities on TikTok, and was successfully defended at the University of Connecticut.” |
| Levi Ross, “Reexamining Preference for Online Social Interaction: Compulsion and Close Interactants as Moderators for Positive and Negative Outcomes, and was successfully defended at the University of Arizona” | |
| 2023 | Enoch Montes, “Inspiring or Demoralizing? Deservingness Perceptions Help Determine Why Emerging Adults Experience Positive or Negative Effects From Envy Inducing Social Media Posts” |
Outstanding Book Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Stephanie Tong & Brandon Van Der Heide, “Up to Date: Communication and Technology in Romantic Relationships” |
| 2023 | Shane Tilton, Meme Life: The Social, Cultural, and Psychological Aspects of Memetic Communication |
| 2021 | Jeffrey A. Hall, Relating Through Technology (Cambridge University Press 2020) |
| 2019 | Keri K. Stephens, Negotiating Control: Organizations and Mobile Communication (Oxford University Press, 2018) |
| 2017 | Bree McEwan, Navigating New Media Networks: Understanding and Managing Communication Challenges in a Networked Society (Lexington Books, 2017) |
| 2015 | Zizi Papacharissi, Affective Publics: Politics, Emotion, and Twitter (Oxford University Press, 2014) |
Outstanding Article Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Jeffrey A. Hall, Natalie Pennington, & Andy J. Merolla, ” Which mediated social interactions satisfy the need to belong? Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication”, (28)1, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmac026 |
| 2022 | Marco Dehnert and Paul Mongeau, “Persuasion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Theories and Complications of AI-Based Persuasion,” published in the Human Communication Journal in 2022. |
| 2020 | Jesse Fox & Bree McEwan, “Distinguishing Technologies for Social Interaction: The Perceived Social Affordances of Communication Channels Scale,” Published in Communication Monographs, 84(3), 298-318. |
| 2018 | David C. DeAndrea, “Advancing warranting theory” |
| 2016 | Brian Spitzberg, (2014). Toward a model of meme diffusion (M3D). Communication Theory, 24, 311-339. |
| 2014 | Keri K. Stephens, Ashley K. Barrett, and Michael Mahometa |
Graduate Student Travel Scholarships
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2012 | Jeong-Woo Jang, Daria S. Heinemann, and David Askay |