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 2004 Couch Award Winners Announced CEDAR FALLS, IOWA, June 15, 2004 -- The Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research is pleased to announce the winners of the 2004 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 Han Lee, doctoral student at University of Illinois at Chicago, for his paper, "Race in cyberqueer space: Looking at race in online personal advertisements for men seeking men." Second place was awarded to Shawn McIntosh, doctoral student at Rutgers University, for his paper, "Moving Fw: Theoretical perspectives on the role of email joke forwarding in maintaining online social relationships." Third place was awarded to Justin Goarcke, masters degree student at the University of Northern Iowa, for his paper, "Formation and reinforcement of Goth identity online." These students will be invited to present their papers at the annual international conference of the Association of Internet Researchers to be held September 19-22 at the University of Sussex, Brighton, England. 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, and not passive objects conforming to social expectations. 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 2004 Couch Award Review Committee was composed of four scholars: Mary Chayko of the College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown, N.J.; Mark D. Johns of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; Katherine M. Clegg Smith of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.; and Lori Kendall of the State University of New York at Purchase, N.Y. 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. # # # ------ 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