DECORAH, Iowa; June 6, 2003 –- The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research (CCCSIR) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2003 Carl Couch Award for Internet Research. The Couch Award is presented annually to recognize competitive papers produced by students at undergraduate or graduate level who make use of the theories and/or methodologies of social research advocated by the late Carl J. Couch, founder of the "New Iowa School" of symbolic interactionism. The winning paper is "Social Interaction and Meaning Construction among [Pro-Anorexic] Community Websites" by Camille Johnson, M.A. candidate, University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Communication. The Runner Up is "A/S/L Everyone!: The Presence of the Body in Web-Based Chat Rooms" by Sarah Michele Ford, Ph.D. candidate in sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Third place paper is "Virtual Religion: a Study of Spiritual Webmasters" by Terra McDaniel, based on her M.A. thesis, University of Houston, Department of Sociology. CCCSIR congratulates these winners, who have been invited to present their papers at the annual meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers, to be held this year in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 16-19 2003. Award certificates and cash prizes will be presented at the Toronto event. The Carl Couch Center is an organization of friends and former students of Carl J. Couch, long time professor of sociology at the University of Iowa. The Center is devoted to advancing the scholarship initiated by Dr. Couch, and to continuing his passion for his students and their research efforts. The Center provides networking opportunities and collaboration information for students and scholars who conduct social and Internet research inspired by Couch's work. By promoting interdisciplinary exchanges, the Center seeks to engage the scholars, citizens, and industry partners in social and Internet research. For more information, see http://www.cccsir.org -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Asst. Professor of Communication/Linguistics, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa http://faculty.luther.edu/~johnsmar/ ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain