Over 125 posters - representing the very best of every Division and Interest Group - were exhibited as part of the Sunday, May 27 interactive paper plenary session of the 2007 ICA Conference in San Francisco, California. This year's judges for the Top Poster Awards were ICA Past Presidents Wolfgang Donsbach (Technical U of Dresden) and Jon Nussbaum (U of Pennsylvania), and ICA President-Elect/Select Patrice Buzzanell (Purdue U).
Following is an explanation of the judges' ranking process:
First, they obtained the respective divisions' rankings of each paper to be exhibited in the interactive paper session. Donsbach, Nussbaum, and Buzzanell then read the top-ranked papers in every division. They ranked each paper using three standard rating dimensions (on a 1-10 scale): significance (30%), concepts and theory (30%), and analysis (20%), and entered the values into a spreadsheet program. A fourth dimension, presentation and style (20%), was also entered, but left blank until the actual presentation during the plenary session.
When averaged, the judges' ratings on the first three dimensions, produced 11 top papers (with a tie for tenth), to which "Top Poster" certificates were attached at the interactive paper session. The top 11 papers, in the order of their display at the interactive paper session, were:
Melissa Elisabeth Fritz, U of Toronto: "Revisiting the Gender Gap: Further Data Analysis of the Gendered Digital Divide in Canada."
Rebecca M. Chory, Alan K. Goodboy, Nathaniel Hixson, and Sarah Baker, West Virginia U: "Does Personality Moderate the Effects of Violent Video Game Play on Aggression? An Exploratory Investigation."
John Edward Campbell, U of Pennsylvania: "Virtual Citizens of Dream Consumers: Looking for Civic Community on Gay.com."
Ai Zhang, U of Maryland: "'Raw Foods Have Saved My Life': A Phenomenological Exploration of Healthy Behavior Change in the Context of Raw-Food-Lifestyle."
Virpy Talvikki Ylanne, Angie M. Williams, and Mark Wadleigh, Cardiff U: "Elder Images in UK Magazine Advertising: Towards a Typology."
Moonki Hong, Florida State U: "Intercultural Differences of the Web Marketing Strategy."
Gabor Toka, U of Oxford: "The Impact of Political Discussion on Political Awareness: A New Research Design."
Carolyn Kitch, Temple U: "Who Speaks for the Amish? Journalists' Debates About Coverage of the Nickel Mines School Shootings."
Bethany A. Simunich, Ohio State U: "The Use of Equivocation in the Opinion Discourse of Political Talk: A Comparison of Political and News Interviews."
Louis W. Leung, Chinese U of Hong Kong: "Leisure Boredom, Sensation Seeking, Self-Esteem, Addiction Symptoms, and Patterns of Mobile Phone Use."
Markus Prior, Princeton U: "Assessing Bias in Self-Reported News Exposure."
The plenary interactive paper session was held on Sunday, May 27. It was at that time that Donsbach, Nussbaum, and Buzzanell filled in the "Presentation and Style" rating dimension for the top 11 papers, after visiting and closely viewing each of them. Once they had finished, the judges entered their ratings into the spreadsheet that contained the rankings of the posters and recalculated the overall scores. ICA President Elect Sonia Livingstone announced the winners near the end of the session:
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| FIRST PLACE ($500): Rebecca M. Chory, Alan K. Goodboy, Nathaniel Hixson, and Sarah Baker, West Virginia U |
SECOND PLACE ($250): Melissa Elisabeth Fritz, U of Toronto |
THIRD PLACE ($100): Virpy Talvikki Ylanne, Angie M. Williams, and Mark Wadleigh, Cardiff U |