Congratulations to current CMCI doctoral student Roger Hallam, who has been awarded the prize for the best PhD paper at the MeCCSA (Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association) conference.

Roger’s paper reported on a randomised, controlled trial he set up between with two political campaign open meetings. One was highly participatory – small discussion groups and everyone deciding on the campaign. The other was a more conventional left wing meeting -four speakers back to back followed by a short question and answer session.

Reported feelings of empowerment were over 80% for the participatory meeting; 20% for the conventional meeting. Roger’s argument is that the variable – the participatory structure – created the empowerment. The conclusion is that participatory meetings are key to political empowerment.

Roger’s PhD at CMCI is on the design of effective mechanisms of progressive/radical political empowerment; his supervisor is Dr Nick Wilson. In addition to the honour, Roger received a cash prize for his winning paper.