Every year, we honor the Top Faculty Paper and the Top Student Paper submitted to the division. Papers submitted via the conference submission site are automatically eligible for consideration for these awards. We also nominate a book for the association-wide Outstanding Book Award and present an Early Career Scholar Award.

Here are the seven nominees for the Early Career Scholar Award for 2026:

Jie Cui

Jie Cui is an Assistant Professor and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Journalism & Communication at Guangzhou University. Her research centers on popular media and culture in contemporary China, examining how digital popular platforms shape cultural practices, identity formation, and political engagement among youth populations. Her work has been published in leading international journals, including Information, Communication & Society, Cultural Sociology, Feminist Media Studies, Asian Journal of Communication,Chinese Journal of Communication, and International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, as well as top Chinese journals.

She has presented over ten papers at prestigious international conferences, including ICA, AEJMC, NCA, and IAMCR. Her scholarly contributions have been recognized with several awards, including the First Place Student Paper Award from the Broadcast and Mobile Journalism Division of AEJMC (2022), the Excellent Paper Award at the 15th Chinese Communication Studies Conference (2022), and the Outstanding Paper Award at the Tsinghua University Doctoral Forum in Journalism and Communication (2021).

Jie also serves as a reviewer for several SSCI journals, including Digital Journalism, Social Science Computer Review, Chinese Journal of Communication.

Dr. Cui received her PhD from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2025.

Selected Publications

Cui, J. (2024). The (de)-politicization of Internet memes in Chinese national youth propaganda campaign. Information, Communication & Everyday Popular Media. 27(8), 1586–1604.  https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2266005

Cui, J. (2026). “Dual Ambivalence of Counterpublics”: Exploring Small-town Swots in Contemporary China. Cultural Sociology. Advance online publication. Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755251408706

Cui, J. (2025). “We are citizens, not fans”: frictions and negotiations in idolizing the nation in state propaganda. Asian Journal of Communication. 35(1), 58-76.  https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2024.2420273

Cui, J. (2024). “Platformed post-feminist negotiation:” decoding gender politics in Chinese female-orientated love simulation games. Feminist Media Studies.  https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2024.2431592

Cui, J., & Tong Q. (2023). How does the Chinese Government conduct emotional governance over COVID-19? Content analysis of video blogs. Chinese Journal of Communication, 16(2), 150-167.  https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2022.2125024

Bethan Jones

Bethan Jones is a Research Associate on the Leverhulme Trust-funded Synthetic Pasts research project at Cardiff University’sSchool of Journalism, Media and Culture. She has written extensively about fandom, media tourism, participatory culture, AI and true crime. Her work has been published in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Velvet Light Trap and Popular Communication, among others. 

Dr. Jones is co-editor of Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Society (Peter Lang, 2015) and Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy, Conflict, and Complicity in Fandom (University of Iowa Press, 2025) and has co-edited numerous journal special issues. She was co-Editor-in-Chief of Popular Communication between 2023-2025 and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Fandom Studies and Transformative Works and Cultures. 

A founding board member of the Fan Studies Network and former co-chair of the SCMS Fan and Audience Studies SIG, she is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, where she is carrying out research on the United Kingdom’s first professional female tattoo artist.

In 2021, Dr. Jones received her PhD from Cardiff University, where she currently leads undergraduate and postgraduate modules. 

Selected Publications

Jones, B. (2026). “School shooter fanfiction as true crime content: making the case for fan creations as legitimate modes of production, consumption and understanding” in Hoffman, M.,  & Hobbs,S.  (eds.)  #TrueCrime: Digital Culture, Ethics and True Crime Audiences. Palgrave, pp.93-116. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183826/

Jones, B. (2025). “‘The Power of That Fan Base Is Really Strong, and It’s Something We Are Encouraging Tourism Businesses to See’: The Economic, Individual, and Civic Values of Fan-Created Screen Tourism Content.” Velvet Light Trap, 95(Spring 2025), pp. 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1353/vlt.00006

Jones, B., & Driessen, S. (2025). “‘The soundtrack to my life, but I can no longer listen to it’: Controversy and the cessation of one’s fandom” in Driessen,S., Jones, B., & Litherland, B. (eds.) Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy, Conflict and Complicity in Fandom. University of Iowa Press, pp. 104-122. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/136072

Jones, B. (2023). “Neo-Cult and the Altered Audience: Reviving Cult TV for the Post-TV Age.” Television & New Media, 24(5), 524-534.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15274764231171068

Jones, B. (2022). “Reopening The X-Files: Generational Fandom, Gender, and Bodily Autonomy”, in Kies, B., &Connor, M. (eds.) Fandom The Next Generation. University ofIowa Press, pp.20-32.  https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt22h6qtt?turn_away=true

Darshana Mini

Darshana Sreedhar Mini is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include Gender and Sexuality, Global Media, Migrant Media, and South Asian and Southeast Asian media.

Dr. Mini is the Associate Editor of Women Studies in Communication and the Contributing Editor of Film Quarterly.She is the co-editor of South Asian Pornographies: Vernacular Formations of the Permissible and Obscene and The Intellect Handbook on Adult Film History. She has also co-edited special issues for Porn Studies (2020; 2022), Film Quarterly (2025), Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies (2021) and Spectator (2019). 

Her articles have been published in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Communication, Culture & Critique, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, Communication and Race, Text and Performance Quarterly, Film History, Feminist Media Histories, Bioscope: South Asian ScreenStudies, among others. 

Dr. Mini received her PhD from the University of Southern California in 2020.

Selected Publications

Mini, D.S. (2024). Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India. University of California Press.https://www.ucpress.edu/books/rated-a/paper

Mini, D.S. (2025). “The Great Indian Road Trip: Constructing the Picturesque Colony in 1940s Travelogue Films and Photographs.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 64(5), 203-22. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964268

Mini, D.S. (2025). “Sembawang’s Malayali Settlement: Fiction, Memoirs and Literature as Inter-Asian Method,” Verge: Study in Global Asias,11(2), 165- 190. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/23/article/967619

Mini, D.S. (2020). “Transnational Ethical Screens: Empathetic Networks in Malayalam Cinema from the Gulf.” Film History, 32(3), 141-169. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/777506

Mini, D.S. (2019). “Un-sound” Sounds: Pornosonics of Female Desire in Indian Mediascapes.” Music, Sound and Moving Image,13(1), 3-30. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/732643

Krysten Stein

Krysten Stein is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College whose research examines where platforms, power, and care collide in contemporary popular media culture. Grounded in feminist media studies and qualitative methodology, her scholarship analyzes how platform governance, creator economies, and media industries reshape visibility, emotional labor, and mental health discourse.

She is the author of And How Does That Make You Feel? Theratainment and the Digital Commodification of Mental Health (forthcoming 2027, University of California Press). Her peer-reviewed journal articles appear in Gender & Society; Feminist Media Studies; International Journal of Communication; Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture; Popular Culture Studies Journal; and the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings. 

Beyond her publications, Dr. Stein contributes actively to field-building in popular media and creator studies. She serves as Social Media Editor for Feminist Media Studies, is an Editorial Board Member for Creator & Influencer Studies (Springer Nature), co-founded the Content Creator Scholars Network, and previously served as Student/Early Career Representative for ICA’s Popular Media & Culture Division (2021–2023). She is a Research Affiliate with the Intersectional Technology Lab at the University of Michigan and the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research has also been featured in NBC News, The Guardian, CNN, and Business Insider.

Dr. Stein received her PhD from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2024.

Selected Publications

Stein, K., Yao, Y., & Aitamurto, T. (2022). Examining Communicative Forms in #TikTokDocs’ Sexual Health Videos. International Journal of Communication. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/18175

Stein, K. (2023). YOU BETTER WORK! Drag Queen Performativity and Visibility on #dragqueen TikTok. Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture. https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/qsmpc_00095_1

Psarras, E., Stein, K., & Shah, P. (2021). “You’re not here for the right reasons!” From The Bachelorette to Instagram Influencer. Feminist Media Studies. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2021.1984276

Gray, K., & Stein, K. (2021). “We ‘said her name’ and got zucked”: Black Women Calling Out the Carceral Logics of Digital Platforms. Gender & Society. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08912432211029393

Stein, K. (2021). What Do Television, Rhetorical Analysis, and Black Men Living on the Down Low All Have in Common? The Oprah Winfrey Show. Popular Culture Studies Journal. https://www.mpcaaca.org/_files/ugd/5a6d69_dd808cb0548048f897c06a4d5e781a3f.pdf

Xiao Yang

 Xiao Yang is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Macau. Her research focuses on Asian screen cultures, the political economy of film and media, and the Chinese cultural industry. She authored the monograph The Evolution of Chinese Popular Cinema and published in peer-reviewed journals such as Asian Studies Review, Television & New Media, The China Quarterly, and Asian Cinema.

Dr. Yang’s additional research outputs include 6 peer-reviewed articles in international journals, 2 book chapters, 14 national and international conference presentations, 7 invited talks, and 3online articles for general audiences. She is the regional editor of Asian Studies Review (SSCI Q1), and a special issue editor. 

She has 6 years of tertiary teaching experience across 11 courses that relate to Film Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and Asian Studies. She actively co-supervises PhD students and contributes to the University of Macau’s academic activities and communication with other institutes. 

Dr. Yang received her PhD from Monash University in 2023.

Selected Publications

Yang, X. (2026). The Evolution of Chinese Popular Cinema: Baokuan Film Phenomena under Nationalism, Globalization and Audiences. Taylor & Francis.  https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003691389/evolution-chinese-popular-cinema-xiao-yang

Yang, X. (2025). “The cinematic construction of social acceleration: Nice View (2022) and the other side of ‘China speed’.” Asian Studies Review.https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2025.2497306

Sarkar, A., & Yang, X. (2025). “Streaming K-dramas and C-dramas: The different paths of Korean and Chinese online television distribution overseas.” Television & New Media, 26(4), 453-476.  https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764241281689

Yang, X., & Khoo,O. (2024). “Projecting China to the World: Cinity, High Frame Rate Cinema, and the Future of Chinese Screening Technology.” Asian Cinema, 35(1&2), 63–79. https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00083_1

Yang, X. (2023). “The ‘Wolf Warrior Cycle’: Chinese Blockbusters in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative.” The China Quarterly,256(2023): 1053–67.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741023000693

Yiyi Yin

Dr. Yiyi Yin is an Associate Professor in the School of Art and Communication at Beijing Normal University. Her research interests focus on cultural studies relating youth, fandom andpopular culture. In particular, she examines how technologies and digital media and cultural practices mutually construct each other. 

Dr. Yin has presented more than 10 papers at leading international conferences. She has contributed several book chapters that further advance discussions in the field of popular media and culture. She also serves as an editorial board member for the International Journal of Cultural Studies, DIY, Alternative Cultures & Society, Popular Communication, and Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies. 

Her teaching focuses on cultural studies theory, popular culture and cinematic narrative. 

Dr. Yin received her PhD from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2019.

Selected Publications

Yin, Y. (2020). An emergent algorithmic culture: The data-ization of online fandom in China. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 23 (4), 475-492. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/reader/10.1177/1367877920908269

Yin, Y., & Xie, Z. (2024). Playing platformized language games: Social media logic and the mutation of participatory cultures in Chinese online fandom. New Media & Society, 26 (2), 619-641. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/reader/10.1177/14614448211059489

 Yin, Y., & Xie, Z. (2018). The bounded embodiment of fandom in China: Recovering shifting media experiences and fan participation through an oral history of Animation-Comics-Games lovers. International Journal of Communication, 12 (18), 3317–3334.  https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/9445/2428

 Yin, Y. (2021). “My baby should feel no wronged!”: Digital fandoms and emotional capitalism in China. Global Media & China, 6 (4), 460-475. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/reader/10.1177/20594364211041681

 Xie, Z., Yin, Y., & Ni, M. (2025). Materializing storyworld, battles of transmedia storytelling:Trans-fandom cultures of The King’s Avatar on Chinese social media platform. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 28 (2), 497-519.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/reader/10.1177/13678779241285448

Dechun Zhang

Dechun Zhang is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where his current research, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant, explores the political implications ofInternet of Things applications in environmental communication and governance across China, Europe, and the United States. His research interests include digital nationalism, media and politics, digital society, and the role of technology in governance. 

His work has been published in leading academic journals, and he is the author of Digital Nationalism and Affective Governance (Routledge, 2026).

In addition to his academic contributions, he serves on various editorial boards, including Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, and Global Perspectives in Communication (the official journal of the ICA). Dr. Zhang is actively engaged with ICA, serving as the Student and Early Career Representative for the Mass Communication Division (2026–2028) and mentoring in several divisions, including Popular Media and Culture Division. His research and academic leadership have earned him prestigious honors, including the Emerging Scholar Fellow award at the 2026 Milton Wolf Seminar on Media and Diplomacy.

Dr. Zhang received his PhD from Leiden University in 2025. 

Selected Publications

Cao, X., & Zhang, D. (2025). Creative digital resistance on China’s Virtual Wailing Wall. China Information. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X251394685

Zhang, D. (2025). Digital nationalism in China: Expression, propaganda, and soft authoritarianism. Dialogues on Digital Society, 1(3), 393-396. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768640251371780

Zhang, D., Liu, J., & Shao, H.L. (2025). Between Nationalist Propaganda and Public Mobilization: People’s Daily’s Nationalist Discourses and Their Public Responses on ChineseSocial Media. Oxford Intersections: Social Media in Society and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198945253.003.0049

Zhang, C., Zhang, D., & Blanchard, P. (2024). International Broadcasting During Times of Conflict: A Comparison of China’s and Russia’s Communication Strategies. JournalismPractice, 18(8), 1977–2004. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2022.2140445

 Zhao, J., & Zhang, D. (2024). Visual propaganda in Chinese central and local news agencies: a Douyin case study. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03059-5

For any questions related to the Early Career Scholar Award, please don’t hesitate to contact the SEC Representative, Miriam Rahali, at mar2007@caa.columbia.edu

To nominate yourself or others for these awards via the division, please write to the division chair, César Jiménez-Martinez at C.A.Jimenez@lse.ac.uk

ICA Fellows

2022: Jonathan Gray

2020: John Hartley

Fellows Book Award

Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture

Recent awardees

Top Student Paper

2025(Denver): Qingyi Yan.“Young African Fashion Micro-Celebrities: The Spatiality of Performative Authenticity on Social Media”

2024 (Gold Coast): Sara Reinis (University of Pennsylvania). “TikTok is one long conversation with the Universe:” Manifestation content on TikTok and how platform affordances shape emerging spirituality

2023 (Toronto): Alexis Haskell (Temple University). “He was the one the PEOPLE voted in” Analyzing Donald Trump voters as fans

2022 (Paris): Mariah L Wellman (University of Utah).“I’m just a friend who knows what they’re talking about”: How source credibility theory manifests within the wellness influencer industry on Instagram

2021 (Virtual due to COVID-19): Tate Adams (Colorado State University). Syncretic Yellowface: Vocality and Racial Mimicry in Disney's Mulan (1998) 

2020 (Virtual due to COVID-19): Jabari Evans (Northwestern University). “We (MOSTLY) Carry Guns for the Internet: Relational Labor, Social Hacking and Chasing Digital Clout in Chicago’s Drill Rap Scene”

2019 (Washington, DC): Kristin Fitzsimmons (University of Minnesota). Gender Rolls: Women's Early Experiences in Tabletop Roleplaying

2018 (Prague): Nicole Strobel (University of California, Santa Barbara). Seeking Pleasure in Violence: The Vice Guide to Being a (Cool) White Dude

2017 (San Diego): Noam Gal (Hebrew U - Jerusalem). The Intellect-Physicality Divide: Digital Irony as a Social Segregation Tool

Early Career Scholar Award

2022: None awarded due to COVID-19

2021: None awarded due to COVID-19

2020: Crystal Abidin

2019: Elizabeth Ellcessor

2018: Brooke Erin Duffy

2017: Jeremy Morris

2016: Ramon Lobato

2015: Melissa Aronczyk and Derek Johnson

2014: Aswin Punathambekar