Named in honor of Frank Luther Mott, Pulitzer Prize winner, educator and long-time leader of Kappa Tau Alpha, the award is made for the best research-based book about journalism or mass communication published each year.
Kappa Tau Alpha, the national college honor society founded in 1910 for scholarship in journalism and mass communication, has recognized research contributions to the field since the inauguration of the award in 1944. The winning author receives a $1,000 prize.
Entries are judged by a panel of university professors of journalism and mass communication and national officers of Kappa Tau Alpha.
Summer Harlow’s Digital-Native News and the Remaking of Latin American Mainstream and Alternative is the winner of the Frank Luther Mott/Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award for the best book on journalism and mass communication based on original research published in 2023.
After a decade of research including interviews, surveys, focus groups and content analysis, Summer Harlow has won the Frank Luther Mott/Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award for her book Digital-Native News and the Remaking of Latin American Mainstream and Alternative Journalism.
In her book, Harlow, a visiting professor at the University of Texas, examines how the emergence of online-native news sites in Latin America is redefining what news can be. This year’s Mott award is for the best book on journalism and mass communication based on original research published in 2023.
KTA President Bill Cassidy, a contest judge, praised Harlow for her insightful examination of the development and impact of digital-native “alternative” media in Latin America.
“What is perhaps most innovative about this important work is how Dr. Harlow seamlessly connects the findings of her research analyzing newer forms of journalism in a specific region as a springboard for thoughtful discussions of shifts, changes, and possibilities for journalistic practice across the world,” said Cassidy, a professor of journalism at Northern Illinois University.
KTA Vice President Raluca Cozma said Harlow’s book offers a potential blueprint for moving quality independent journalism forward.
“The study also has valuable practical implications, illustrating how, even in countries with political systems hostile to media freedom, journalists can innovate, amplify underrepresented voices, and pursue justice,” said Cozma, a professor at Kansas State University.
Harlow is the associate director of The Knight Center for Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism and Media, and is on leave from Texas A&M University. Before earning her Ph.D. in journalism, she worked for about 10 years covering immigration and city government at U.S. newspapers.
Other finalists were Jordana Cox for Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers in New York (University of Massachusetts Press); Penelope Ingram for Imperiled Whiteness: How Hollywood and Media Make Race in “Postracial” America (University Press of Mississippi); Martin Marinos for Free to Hate: How Media Liberalization Enabled Right-Wing Populism in Post-1989 Bulgaria (University of Illinois Press); and Mora Matassi and Pablo J. Boczkowski for To Know Is to Compare: Studying Social Media across Nations, Media, and Platforms (MIT Press).
Contact: Beverly Horvit, umcjourkta@missouri.edu, 573-882-0880