CCT Alum Dr. Josh Scacco receives Lynda Lee Kaid Outstanding Dissertation Award

CCT Alumni Dr. Josh Scacco (new window) has been awarded the Lynda Lee Kaid Outstanding Dissertation Award presented by the Political Communication Division of the National Communication Association.

Dr. Scacco is a 2010 graduate of the CCT Program and is currently an Assistant Professor of Media Theory & Politics in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University.  He also serves as Courtesy Faculty for the Department of Political Science. He is interested broadly in the communicative role elites and organizations, including political leaders, journalists, and news outlets, play in American political life. At Purdue, Dr. Scacco teaches courses on political communication, media, and research method-related topics.

Professor Scacco received his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin, where he authored his award-winning dissertation, “Presidential Prediction: The Strategic Construction and Influence of Expectation Frames.”

Following the announcement, the award committee noted the importance of Dr. Scacco’s research:

“The committee found Dr. Scacco’s dissertation on presidential “future talk” to be the most impressive of all those nominated for this year’s Kaid Outstanding Dissertation Award, due especially to the rigorous methodologies employed – both an impressive content analysis and an experimental study examining effectiveness of future frames. Committee members were also deeply impressed with Dr. Scacco’s ability to engage the extensive literature in political communication and rhetorical studies to not only demonstrate contributions to a variety of areas in the field, but to bring these important works into an important – and unfortunately rare – discussion with one another.”

Congratulations, Josh!

To read the dissertation in its entirety, please visit https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/25959/SCACCO-DISSERTATION-2014.pdf?sequence=1 (new window).