CARL J. COUCH INTERNET RESEARCH AWARDS ANNOUNCED August 28, 2002 The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research is pleased to announce the winners of the first annual Carl J. Couch Internet Research competition for students. Top Paper honors go to Kurt Reymers, a Ph.D. candidate at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), for his submission, "Identity and the Internet: A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective on Computer-Mediated Social Networks." Runner Up is Nick Huber, a graduate student at Minnesota State University -- Mankato, for his paper, "Surfing for Sports." Third Place honors were earned by Andrea Nugent, a student at Goucher College (Maryland), for her paper, "Database as Cultural Form." The top three papers are to be presented at the 2002 International Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) at the University of Maastricht (the Netherlands), International Institute of Infonomics. In addition, the winners will receive Couch Award certificates and cash prizes at Maastricht conference, which takes place October 13-16, 2002. The Couch Award competition is open to students at any level who submit theoretical or empirical papers that (1) apply symbolic interactionist approaches to Internet studies, (2) demonstrate interactive relationships between social interaction and communication technologies as advocated by Couch, (3) develop symbolic interactionist concepts in new directions. The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Studies (http://www.cccsir.org) is a non-profit organization established to promote scholarship in sociological and communication inquiries. It honors the late Carl J. Couch, founder of the New Iowa school of social theory, and seeks to extend Couch's methods of qualitative laboratory research and Couch's work on information technologies. The Center provides networking opportunities and corroboration 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 about CCCSIR or the Couch Award, please contact Mark D. Johns, Assistant Professor of Communication/Linguistics, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa 52101. Phone (563) 387-1347, email: johnsmar@luther.edu -- 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