History

The Dissertation Award Committee of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies invites submissions for its annual award for the outstanding dissertation in film, television, and media studies. The SCMS Dissertation Award carries a cash prize of $1,000 and is presented at the annual conference. Dissertations that address any cinema, television or media topic within the disciplinary concerns and traditions of humanities-based moving image and sound studies will be considered. Criteria for judging include clarity and strength of argumentation, quality and originality of scholarship and research, organization and coherence, prose style, and contribution to the understanding of the field of film, television, or media studies.

Eligibility

• Candidates for the 2025–2026 award must have earned their doctoral degrees between August 1, 2024 and July 31, 2025.

Procedures

• Entrants must complete the submission form through the Awards portal by the annual deadline.
• The following materials are required to submit for the Dissertation Award:
• A copy of your diploma or other official document confirming the date of the award of your PhD degree;
• Your dissertation abstract (250-500 words in length) and a recommendation for one chapter that the committee should read for the initial screening process.
• A PDF file of the entire dissertation.
• When submitting all the required documents the entire files can't be larger than 30MB, If so, you will need to compress accordingly. Otherwise the documents will not load and you will receive a uploading error.
• The SCMS office will notify the official winner and all entrants.
• Failure to follow procedures will result in disqualification.
• A W-9 form is required before the check will be disbursed.