Wayne A. Danielson Award

The Wayne Danielson Award for Distinguished Contributions to Communication Scholarship recognizes scholars who have made a significant contribution to our understanding of communication. The recipient’s work may cover one or more areas of communication study and discussions of their ideas should be viewed as productive in stimulating new thought about the nature and process of communication. The recipient is formally presented with an award, and gives a lecture in the fall semester of every year. 

Previous Awardee Lectures:

"Storytelling Beyond Boundaries: The Creative Art of Exploration, Subversion, Transformation and Love in Times of Resistance"

Professor Jamal Joseph (2024)

"Storytelling Beyond Boundaries: The Creative Art of Exploration, Subversion, Transformation and Love in Times of Resistance."

Safiya

Dr. Safiya U. Noble (2023)

"Decolonizing the Stack"

CW

Dr. Claire Wardle (2022)

"The signing brain: What sign languages tell us about human language."

Recognizing scholars who have made a significant contribution to the understanding of communication, the Wayne A. Danielson Award was created in 1991. It honors Professor Emeritus Wayne Danielson for his contributions to the Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin and the field of communication.

Danielson joined The University of Texas at Austin faculty in 1969 and served as dean of the Moody College of Communication (formerly School of Communication). Previously, he taught at Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a Ph.D. in mass communications from Stanford University.

His research has led to the development of more than 30 operating programs for tools such as readability indexes, automatic news indexes and stylistic advice to authors.

He also served as founding editor of Journalism Abstracts (now Journalism & Mass Communications Abstracts), a publication of the Association for Education and Journalism and Mass Communication.

  • Dr. Karen D. Emmory (2021)
    • "The signing brain: What sign languages tell us about human language."
  • Dr. Eszter Hargittai (2020)
    • "Connectivity, COVID, and Coping: Digital Inequality in Unsettled Times."
  • Dr. Jeff Hancock (2019)
    • "Rethinking Trust and Well-Being in a Digital Age."
  • Dr. Zizi Papacharissi (2018)
    • "Technology as Architecture."
  • Dr. Pamela J. Shoemaker (2017)
  • Dr. Sharon Dunwoody (2016)
    • "An Accuracy Conundrum...in Two Parts."
  • Dr. Michele Hilmes (2015)
    • "Soundwork: Re-sounding American Media Studies."
  • Dr. Michael D. Slater (2014)
    • "Intergrating Selective Exposure, Media Effects Approaches."
  • Professor Sonia M. Livingstone (2013)
    • "Digital connections and disconnections: ethnographic explorations among young teens."
  • Dr. Ellen Wartella (2012)
    • "Food Marketing and the Childhood Obesity Crisis."
  • Dr. Robert M. Entman (2011)
    • "Scandal and Silence: Media Responses to Presidential Misconduct."
  • Dr. Raymond D. Kent (2010)
    • "The Anatomy of Eloquence: The Biology of (Human) Speech."
  • Dr. Sandra Ball-Rokeach (2009)
    • "The Seeds of Civic Engagement in Contemporary Urban Communities."
  • Dr. Bruce Gronbeck (2008)
    • "The Twenty-first Century Reconstruction of American Political Culture."
  • Dr. David Bordwell (2007)
    • "CinemaScope: The Modern Miracle You See without Special Glasses!"
  • Dr. Jack M. McLeod (2006)
  • Professor Ben H. Bagdikian (2005)
    • "The Journalist as Celebrity: The Kiss of Death."
  • Dr. Michael Schudson (2004)
    • "The Trouble with Experts- And Why Democracies Need Them."
  • Dr. Joanne Cantor (2002)
    • "Media Violence and Children's Emotions."
  • Dr. Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. (2000)
    • "Coming to Terms with Chance" Statistics & Reasonable Racism."
  • Dr. Everett Rogers (1999)
  • Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (1998)
    • "Big Tobacco Versus Little Kids: The New Politics of Issue Advocacy."
  • Dr. Jose Marques de Melo (1997)
    • "Latin American Communication Research- Past, Present and Future."
  • Dr. Adam Kendon (1996)
  • Dr. Elihu Katz (1995)
  • Dr. Herbert I. Schiller (1994)
  • Dr. W. Charles Redding (1993)
  • Dr. James W. Carey (1992)
    • "The Mystery of the Audience."
  • Dr. George Gerbner (1991)
    • "Telling All the Stories... The New Cultural Environment and What to Make of It. An Agenda for Students, Parents, Professionals, and Citizens."