2026 MEA Awards
as presented at our 2026 convention
The Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology to Tom Cooper for Wisdom Weavers: The Lives and Thought of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan
The Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology to Sasha Crawford-Holland for “A Sense of Security: The Visual Politics of COVID-19 Thermography”
The Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social Interaction to Celia Pearce for Playframes: How Do We Know We Are Playing?
The Susanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form to Susanna Berger for The Deformation: Attention and Discernment in Catholic Reformation Art and Architecture and Ross A. Eaman for Architecture as Communication: A Medium Like No Other
The Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture to David Wittenberg for Big Culture: Toward an Aesthetics of Magnitude
The Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics to Seth Long for The Last Mixtape: Physical Media and Nostalgic Cycles
The Harold A. Innis Award for Outstanding Thesis or Dissertation in the Field of Media Ecology to Mora Matassi for "Digital Tango: Processes and Implications of Turning Towards and Away from Social Media"
The Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work to Chris Campanioni for VHS (novel)
The John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology to Fred Peabody and Peter Raymont for Digital Tsunami (film)
The Louis Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in the Field of Media Ecology to Corey Anton
The Jacques Ellul Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Activism to Wab Kinew
The James W. Carey Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Journalism to James Marriott
The Christine L. Nystrom Award for Career Achievement in Service to the Field of Media Ecology to Heather M. Stassen
The Edmund S. Carpenter Award for Career Achievement in Editing in the Field of Media Ecology to Jaqueline McLeod Rogers
The Walter J. Ong Award for Career Achievement in Scholarship to Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
The Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity to Derrick de Kerckhove
The MEA Convention Top Paper Award for “‘What has the most relevance to students is that which the information environment least provides them.’ Applying Neil Postman’s Thought to Music Education” to Adam Yee
The Linda Elson Scholar Award for the Top Student paper at the MEA Convention for “Antiheroes as Moral Interfaces: Youth, Transmedia Worlds, and the Ethical Dynamics of Contemporary Media Ecologies” to Alejandra Ortega Legaspi