Annual Dissertation Award

The AoIR Dissertation Award was established in 2012 to recognize the work of emerging scholars in the field of Internet research. Dissertations filed in the previous calendar year are eligible. Submission instructions will be distributed in the early Spring. The submissions will be reviewed by a committee of scholars experienced in supervising dissertation work.

Submissions Details:

  • A nomination letter that explains why the dissertation is deserving of the award
  • How it contributes to internet research
  • The graduate or their supervisor must be a member of AoIR
  • A PDF copy of the dissertation should be emailed
  • Filed in 2022 (meaning fully defended, all edits complete, filed/published with a 2022 copyright)

The recipient of this award will be announced by August each year. In addition to winning a cash prize, the individual will have the opportunity to present their research at our annual conference.

Past Award Recipients:

  • 2023: Tuğçe Bidav, (Maynooth University) – “Global Platform, Local Labour: Precarious YouTubing in Ireland and Turkey.”
  • 2022: Sebastián Lehuedè, (London School of Economics and Political Science) – “Governing Data in Modernity/Coloniality: Astronomy Data in the Atacama Desert and the Struggle for Collective Autonomy.”
  • 2021: Niki Cheong, (The University of Nottingham) – “Cybertrooping and the Online Manipulation of Political Communication in Malaysia: The Barisan Nasional Years.”
  • 2020: Elisabetta Ferrari, (University of Pennsylvania) – “The Technological Imaginaries of Social Movements: The Discursive Dimension of Communication Technology and the Fight for Social Justice?”
  • 2019: Erhardt Graeff, (MIT) – “Evaluating Civic Technology Design for Citizen Empowerment”
  • 2018: Stacy Blasiola (University of Illinois at Chicago) – “The Privacy of Others”
  • 2017: Julia Ticona (University of Virginia) – “Left to Our Own Devices: Navigating the Risks of Work & Love with Personal Technologies”
  • 2016: Eden Litt (Northwestern University) – “The Imagined Audience: How People Think About Their Audience and Privacy on Social Network Sites.”
  • 2015: Nora Draper (University of Pennsylvania) – “Reputation, Inc.: Assessing the industrialization of self-presentation and privacy in the digital era”
  • 2014: Elisa Oreglia (University of California – Berkeley) – “From Farm to Farmville: Circulation, Adoption, and Use of ICT between Urban and Rural China”
  • 2013: Taina Bucher (University of Oslo) – “Programmed Sociality: A Software Studies Perspective on Social Networking Sites”
  • 2012: Jessica L. Beyer (University of Washington) – “Youth and the Generation of Political Consciousness Online”