Awards

Each year at its annual convention, the MEA gives out a number of awards, including the MEA Convention Top Paper Award and the Linda Elson Scholar Award for Top Student Paper.

The winner of the Linda Elson Scholar Award is named a Linda Elson Scholar and receives complimentary membership and convention registration for the following year. Linda Elson was a PhD student in the media ecology program at New York University who passed away before she could complete her dissertation. With the help of Alan Ponikvar, her study was published as Paradox Lost: A Cross-Contextual Definition of Levels of Abstraction in Hampton Press’s Media Ecology book series.

In addition to the two covention paper awards, the MEA gives out the following awards for books:

• The Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology
• The Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social Interaction
• The Susanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form
• The Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture
• The Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics

The MEA’s awards also include:

• The Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology
• The Harold A. Innis Award for Outstanding Thesis or Dissertation in the Field of Media Ecology
• The Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work
• The John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology
• The Louis Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in the Field of Media Ecology
• The Jacques Ellul Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Activism
• The James W. Carey Award for Outstanding Journalism
• The Christine L. Nystrom Award for Career Achievement in Service to the Field of Media Ecology
• The Edmund S. Carpenter Award for Career Achievement in Editing in the Field of Media Ecology
• The Walter J. Ong Award for Career Achievement in Scholarship
• The Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity

To learn more or to nominate someone or yourself for one of these awards, see the current call for nominations.

Here’s a list of the most-recent winners. You may also be interested in the full list of the MEA’s past awards.

In 2021, the MEA, in conjunction with the Urban Communication Foundation, began awarding a Student Research Grant.