Accomplishments

Communication PhD students win Top Interactive Paper Award for research on viewing animated news

Janet Lo and Benjamin Cheng (PhD candidates) of the School of Communication, won a Top Interactive Paper Award for their paper entitled "Fueling the debate: Predictive relationships among personality characteristics, motives and effects of melodramatic animated news viewing" at the Centennial Conference of the Association of Education for Journalism and Mass Communication held in Chicago, USA in August. The conference attracted more than 2,400 participants with a total of close to 880 paper presentations.

This year, the Association established a Top Interactive Paper Award in the Electronic News category to recognise outstanding research. The students' paper was selected from around 40 papers based on refereed reviewer scores as well as scores from a panel of four judges who reviewed the interactive papers during a presentation session.

Janet and Benjamin said they were honoured to clinch an award in an international academic conference. Benjamin said: "This year the Association of Education for Journalism and Mass Communication celebrates its centenary. We are the first research team to win this newly established award. I am really excited. I am thankful to the professors of the School of Communication for guiding me in theory application and research. We also thank the University and the School for the financial support that enabled us to attend the conference."

"I would like to thank all the professors in the School of Communication for teaching me and inspiring me academically. The media has a close relationship with society, politics and livelihood. I hope that in the future I will have more opportunities to contribute to society through my research in communication," said Janet.

The award-winning paper, which surveyed 312 Hong Kong college students in October 2011, aimed to investigate the relationship between the motives behind watching melodramatic news and the perceived credibility and newsworthiness of the news. The research identified seven motives behind animated news viewing: companionship, social interaction, relaxation, information-seeking, interpersonal learning, entertainment and passing the time. The research found that entertainment was the most salient reason for watching animated news videos among the respondents. It also showed that viewers driven by information and companionship motives perceived animated news videos as more credible. In addition, individuals who watch animated news for interpersonal learning perceived it as more newsworthy.

	Janet Lo (left) and Benjamin Cheng won a Top Interactive Paper Award for their research paper on watching animated news