Announcement of edcom 2017 Thesis Competition Winners

Drum rolls please!

Nearly four months after the competition was launched, today our academic jury reached a decision on the two winners of the 2016-2017 edcom Thesis Competition.

In the Bachelor’s category: Rebecca Hamers from NHTV University of Applied Sciences was chosen for her work:
“The Influence of message framing and issue involvement in communications on persuasion: a meat eating application.”

In the Masters category, Ida Foerster from FH Wien was selected for her work:
“The role of social media in communication: an exploration of the connection between deployed channels, the interation with the Facebook community and the importance of social media in corporate communications.”

The edcom Thesis Competition rewards the best Bachelor and Master theses on advertising or commercial communications amongst edcom member schools. This year, edcom received 17 entries from 14 different edcom schools across 10 countries. These 17 students had already been carefully selected by their edcom representative or academic supervisor prior to entering the edcom Thesis Competition.

In the first round, entries were judged by the edcom Research Committee on their relevance to the field of commercial communications.

Those passing to the second round were then awarded points based on the extent to which their work is consistent and coherent; contains strong objectives; clearly defined research goals and methodology; appropriate results and conclusions; and suggestions for further research. In total, 14 entries were judged in the second round.

In the final round, the jury assessed the novelty (does the thesis offer a new and original insight) and scale (what is the magnitude of the achievement) of the six finalists via conference call in order to decide upon a winner for each category.

Ida and Rebecca will receive free travel, accommodation and entry to the EACA International Advertising Summer School, which will be taking place in Prague from 3 to 7 July 2017. As a bachelor student, name will be participating in the Foundation course, while Master student name will be following the Advanced programme. All other finalists will receive an official edcom certificate, recognising their nomination and participation to the competition.

From all of the edcom team, we would like to thank all students for taking part in this year’s competition and we wish them the best of luck in their future academic and professional endeavours!