Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research http://www.cccsir.org Contact: Mark D. Johns Asst. Professor of Communication Luther College 700 College Drive Decorah, IA 52101 (563) 387-1347 johnsmar@luther.edu FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CEDAR FALLS, IOWA, June 15, 2005 -- The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research is pleased to announce the winners of the 2005 competition for the Carl J. Couch Award for Internet Research. This award honors student papers from all disciplines researching various aspects of the influence of the Internet on society. This year’s First Place Couch Award winner is Ericka Menchen, a graduate student in Communication Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for her paper, "Blogger motivations: Power, pull, and positive feedback." Second place was awarded to Daniel A. Menchik and Xiaoli Tian, graduate students at The University of Chicago, Department of Sociology, for their paper, "The online layer: How email shapes social interactions." Third place was awarded to Matthew Lust, graduate student at Southern Utah University, Department of Sociology, for his paper, "Virtual Members and Real Interaction: The Internet and Online Sociation." These students will be invited to present their papers at the annual international conference of the Association of Internet Researchers to be held October 5-9 in Chicago. Winners also receive a cash award to assist with their continuing studies. The Couch Award honors the late Carl Couch, long-time professor of sociology at the University of Iowa and founder of the so-called “New Iowa School” of social research. As a leading proponent of “symbolic interactionism,” Couch insisted that humans are social actors who construct their social world. Couch was one of the first scholars to see computer-mediated communication not just as another way to transmit information, but as an arena in which people exchange symbols and form social interactions. The 2005 Couch Award Review Committee was composed of four scholars: Mark D. Johns of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; Katherine M. Clegg Smith of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.; Lori Kendall of the State University of New York at Purchase, N.Y.; and Jodi O'Brien of Seattle University. The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research is a non-profit organization established to promote the scholarship in sociological and communication inquiries begun by Carl Couch. The center provides networking opportunities and corroboration information for students and scholars who conduct social and Internet research, inspired by Couch's work involving qualitative laboratory research on information technologies and their impact on society. For additional information on the Couch Center or the Couch Award, contact Mark D. Johns at johnsmar@luther.edu or Professor Shing-Ling S. Chen, University of Northern Iowa, at chen@cccsir.org. # # #