Communication Master's Students Excel Thanks to Arnold and Rushing Awards

Lacie Bryles

Communication M.A. scholarship recipients Aubrey Studebaker (left) and Amy Whiteside.

Thanks to two endowed scholarships, a couple of first-year M.A. students in communication are having a successful year.

Amy Whiteside, from Bella Vista, has been named the 2023-2024 recipient of the Janice Hocker Rushing Award. The scholarship, which is named after a longtime faculty member from the Department of Communication who was an outstanding scholar and beloved mentor, goes to one incoming student each year who excels in rhetorical studies.

Whiteside's accomplishments have been impressive. In addition to presenting co-authored work at the National Communication Association's annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland, in November, her research on contemporary populism and parasocial politics has recieved the Top Student Paper in Political Communication at the Southern States Communication Association's annual meeting to be held in Texas in April. Additionally, with her mentor, Ryan Neville-Shepard, Whiteside has recently published an article in the Journal of Communication Inquiry concerning conspiracy theories in children's television shows. Her latest work, a review of Shani Orgad's and Rosalind Gill's Confidence Culture (Duke University Press, 2022) appears in the journal Cultural Studies.

Aubrey Studebaker, from Blairsville, Georgia, has been named the 2023-2024 recipient of the Richard S. and Kay Kelley Arnold Graduate Fellowship. The scholarship was established to honor Richard S. Arnold, who worked as a judge on the U.S. District Court and then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The Arnold Prize is awarded to new M.A. students in their first semester of study who exhibit promise in research concerning the United States Constitution, issues of free speech and public service.

Studebaker has also had a remarkable first year. With a focus on political rhetoric and issues of identity, Studebaker recently published a co-authored book chapter on citizens' roles in congressional hearings as public spectacle. The chapter appears in Power and Politics in the Media: The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research (Purdue University Press, 2024). In addition to recently publishing co-authored work on U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the nickname "AOC" in the national journal Communication and Democracy, Studebaker will be presenting new work on modern missionary visual rhetoric at the Southern States Communication Association's annual convention in Texas in April.

Neville-Shepard, graduate director in the Department of Communication, explains that the M.A. program continues to thrive thanks to scholarships like those named after Rushing and the Arnolds.

"We have been recognized as one of the top M.A. programs in the country by the National Communication Association," Neville-Shepard said. "In fact, our students have won national awards for top M.A. theses every year since 2017. That happens because we can attract some of the best students in the country — just like Amy and Aubrey — thanks to our generous scholarships."