Nigerian scholar wins two top U.S. journalism research awards

By: Remi Adebayo

Nigerian journalism scholar Munachim Amah has earned a rare double honour at the 106th annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), held from August 7-10, 2023 at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, DC, United States.
Amah received both the Robert L.

Stevenson Faculty Research Award and the African Journalism Studies Best Paper Award for Journalism Research, two of the most prestigious honours in journalism and mass communication research. He is the first Nigerian to receive this double recognition from a respected international body.

The Robert L. Stevenson Faculty Research Award of the International Communication Division, named after a pioneering journalism educator, honours the best faculty-authored research paper at the AEJMC.

The African Journalism Studies Best Paper Award for Journalism Research, sponsored by the peer-reviewed journal African Journalism Studies, is presented annually to the best research paper on African journalism. It recognises work that demonstrates scholarly depth, originality, and national significance.

Winning both awards in the same year marks Amah’s accomplishment as exceptionally rare.

This year’s AEJMC conference, held under the theme “Fostering Freedom and Defending Democracy,” brought together academics, media professionals and students from around the world for sessions, workshops, panels, and networking events on the contributions of media and communication to democracy and the rapid transformations in digital media and journalism.

“It’s such an honour to receive these awards from a prestigious international organization in our field,” Amah said. “I am so grateful to the organisers and awards committee for this distinction.”

Before this recognition, Amah had already built a track record of academic excellence. He was a leading communications scholar at one of Nigeria’s foremost private universities and has taught journalists, corporate communication executives, and PR practitioners. At the University of Iowa, he has won several competitive research awards and grants, including the Stanley Award for International Research, granted to a select group of scholars to travel abroad and conduct international research. Amah has conducted field research with journalists in Nigeria to understand the coverage of poverty in Nigeria and limitations to journalists’ work.

His award-winning paper, “Getting to the heart of the matter: Journalistic use of exemplars to represent poverty in Nigeria,” used in-depth interviews and thematic analysis to examine journalists’ sourcing practices when covering poverty. The study was co-authored with University of Iowa Professor Rachel Young, with Amah leading the project.

The study found that poverty exemplars can be used strategically to shame the government and enact moral solidarity, that the inclusion of news sources impacts how a story is framed and understood, and that care-based practices with news sources experiencing poverty is critical in journalism.

“My work in the past three years or so has been focused on how media representations of poverty can act as a catalyst for social change,” Amah said. He said he was excited to see this work gaining traction internationally.

Reflecting on his experience at the conference, Amah shared that engaging with colleagues from around the world reaffirmed his commitment to research and teaching that connect academic inquiry with real-world challenges facing the media today.

With two international awards and his doctoral studies now underway, Amah’s recognition puts Nigeria on the global map and exemplifies the growing impact of African scholars on the global academic stage.