AEJMC awards recent PhD grad with McCombs Shaw Award for Best Student Paper in Political Communication

UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media 2016 Park Fellow and Ph.D. graduate Kylah Hedding has won the McCombs Shaw Award for Best Student Paper in Political Communication from the Political Communication Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Hedding will present her paper, "When and How Do Media Matter in a Policy Debate? The Multi-faceted Role of Newspapers in the Fracking Debates in New York and North Carolina," as part of the Best of Political Communication Interest Group Top Paper Panel at the annual AEJMC 2016 Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Aug. 4-7, 2016.

"We're very proud of Kylah and delighted that yet another one of our doctoral students has received a top research paper award," said Heidi Hennink-Kaminski, senior associate dean of graduate studies at the Hussman School. "This is another indicator of strength of our Ph.D. program and how well prepared our graduates are for research and the academy."

Hedding, who successfully defended her thesis earlier this month, will join the University of Iowa Hussman School of Journalism and Media this fall as a tenure track assistant professor.

The McCombs Shaw Award for Best Student Paper in Political Communication is awarded annually by the Political Communication Interest Group of AEJMC to the best graduate student paper submission. The award is named for Max McCombs and Donald Shaw, whose 1968 Chapel Hill study developed the theory of agenda-setting.

AEJMC is a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals.