Didem Uca, a second-year PhD student in the department, and co-author Kate Zambon won the Top Student Paper Award in the Popular Communication Division at the 2014 conference of the International Communication Association. Their paper, which explores the relationship between non-ethnic German hip hop artists and institutional frameworks, is entitled “Sor bir bana: Hip Hop and Socio-Cultural Institutions in Germany”.

 
Didem's research revolves around issues of migration, multilingualism in cultural production, Turkish-German studies, transnational literature, and gender studies.

Kate Zambon is a fourth-year PhD student at Penn's Annenberg School for Communication. Her research interests include global communication, particularly as it pertains to culture, race and migration. Her current research focuses on the media's construction of normative identities in journalism and entertainment media in Germany.

Didem and Kate are excited to present their paper at the ICA this May in Seattle, Washington.