Graduate Students Win All ICA Political Communication Awards

Columbia, Mo. (June 1, 2003) -- Four Missouri School of Journalism graduate students won all of the awards for top student papers in the Political Communication Division at the International Communication Association (ICA) convention in May.

The division honors just four graduate students each year, meaning Missouri swept this year's awards. The four students were each awarded $225.

Two doctoral students, Anca Micu and Mugur Geana, won their awards for a political agenda-setting study, examining the influence of newspaper coverage in France on public attitudes towards the Euro. The paper, which was written for Prof. Wayne Wanta's Mass Communication Theory class, looked at 72 articles from France's major newspaper, Le Monde, and compared them with public opinion polls conducted by Gallup.

Another doctoral student, Cheolhan Lee, and a master's student, Yun Jung Choi, both of Korea, wrote the other winning paper. Their study applied functional theory to analyze the use of negative versus positive discourse in political advertisements during Korea's 1997 presidential campaign.

Wanta, who is chair of Lee's dissertation committee and who was a member of Choi's thesis committee, was present at the awards ceremony in San Diego. He attributed Missouri's success in the ICA awards to the emphasis it places on graduate research and to the number of bright and outstanding students at the School pursuing studies in political communication.

ICA is a multinational organization that brings together academicians and other professionals whose interest is focused on human communication.