The Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award 2023: Winners and Nominees
Three publications were nominated for this year’s edition of the international Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award. The Award was granted to Datafication of Public Opinion and the Public Sphere: How Extraction Replaced Expression of Opinion (London, New York: Anthem Press, 2022) – a recent book by Slavko Splichal (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia). A special Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award 2023 was awarded to Jolanta Kurska for her book Wieczny powrót Dreyfusa (Eng. Dreyfus: A Perpetual Comeback; Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog, 2022).
On April 12, 2023, the Selection Committee reviewed books submitted for this year’s edition of the Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award – an award supporting significant publications in media systems, media policies, media ethics, and public service media. Scholarly contributions to the research and practice of media and democracy in 2022 and 2023 were submitted by members of the Leadership team of the International Association of Public Service Media Researchers (IAPMR), Editors, and Associate Editors of “Central European Journal of Communication” (CEJC), previous Award winners and the Selection Committee.
The Committee evaluated all of the submitted publications through three highly interwoven criteria:
- methodological correctness,
- contribution to media knowledge,
- potential impact on democratic society.
The Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award in 2023 was granted to:
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Slavko Splichal (2022). Datafication of Public Opinion and the Public Sphere: How Extraction Replaced Expression of Opinion. London, New York: Anthem Press. Awarded for the critical-normative assessment of public opinion, the cornerstone of a democratic society, alongside an innovative conceptualisation for public opinion and publicness in the age of algorithms and data. |
Slavko Splichal is a Professor of Communication and Public Opinion at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and an associate member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Slavko Splichal is the founder and director of the European Institute for Communication and Culture - based in Ljubljana - and the scholarly journal “Javnost-The Public”. Splichal’s research interests include communication theory, media politics, public opinion, and communication research methods and he is also an expert in examining media and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. Furthermore, Slavko Splichal acknowledges the impact of Karol Jakubowicz’s research in the Prologue, which summarises the author’s longitudinal scientific interests.
The following publications were also nominated for the Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award in 2023:
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1) R. Eugene Parta (2022). Under the Radar. Tracking Western Radio Listeners in the Soviet Union. Budapest, Vienna, New York: Central European University Press. Nominated for a holistic approach to actions by Radio Liberty to reach their audience in the USSR during the Cold War, as well as for elaborating on language manipulation and propaganda in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. |
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2) Sara Bentivegna, Rossella Rega (2022). Searching for the Dimensions of Today’s Political Incivility. Social Media + Society, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221114430. Nominated for describing the societal and individual foundations of public and political behavior alongside a scholarly explanation of the intent to delegitimise public debate – the value for ongoing and future political campaign research. |
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It is worth to mention that for the first time in the Award’s history, a scientific article was nominated to the Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award (“Searching for the Dimensions of Today’s Political Incivility”, published in Social Media + Society).
Moreover, the Selection Committee awards the excellence of “Wieczny powrót Dreyfusa” (Eng. Dreyfus: A Perpetual Comeback), a book by Jolanta Kurska, with a special Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award 2023.
The publication was acknowledged for raising awareness about where the sources of polarization in society lie and as a warning sign that the Dreyfus Affair is universal. Therefore, the Committee notes that the theme of this collection of essays meets the idea of the Award and needs further dissemination.
The Award Ceremony took place on May 15, 2023, during the opening of the scientific conference "Studia i Perspektywy Medioznawcze" (Eng. Media Studies: Research and Perspectives), organized by the Institute of Journalism and Social Communication at the University of Wrocław (in Wrocław, Poland).
On behalf of the Committee and all the stakeholders, we warmly congratulate the Winners and the Nominees!
Dagmara Sidyk-Furman and Michał Głowacki