The University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Center for Public Interest Communications has awarded the 2023 Hon Research Prize in Public Interest Communications to three researchers using ethnographic research in a small Midwestern town to explore discursive frames that link class, race, place, and behavior.

Teresa Gonzales, assistant professor of sociology at Loyola University of Chicago , Elizabeth Thissell, NOVA Community Organizer at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, and King’s College London doctoral student Soumitra Thorat received the $10,000 prize for “The Stories We Tell: Colorblind Racism, Classblindness, and Narrative Framing in the Rural Midwest.”

The prize, which was sponsored this year by the Rita Allen Foundation, is awarded annually at the Center for Public Interest Communications’ frank gathering, a gathering for social change communicators and movement builders. It honors work that contributes to the understanding of the public interest communications field as a unique discipline, offers insight that can improve the effectiveness of public interest communication practice, details a specific public interest communication campaign, explores evaluative measures, documents specific ways in which public interest communication differs from similar disciplines, or provides insight on how to communicate effectively.

Two other finalists presented research on “Testing the efficacy of three informational interventions for reducing misperceptions of the Black-White wealth gap,” and “This was 1976 reinvented’”: The role of framing in the development of a South African youth movement.”

Celebrating the 10th year of the research prize in public interest communications, the Center also recognized the contributions to the field of public interest communications by University of Florida Professor Emerita Linda Hon, Ph.D., by formally naming the prize in her honor.

Posted: March 7, 2023
Category: Center for Public Interest Communications, College News
Tagged as: Center for Public Interest Communications, frank gathering, Linda Hon