The youth perspective came from two students, Gracen Johnson from the University of Guelph and Yves Guillaume A. Messy from the University of Toronto.

Also on the show were Lisa Taylor, an instructor at the School of Journalism, Ryerson University, Andrew Coyne, a columnist with Postmedia Newspaper Chain and Clay Johnson, author of The Information Diet.

I was also featured in a Global National report on the Twitter troubles of Toews.

The University of British Columbia award recognizes “a faculty member who has made extraordinary efforts to communicate their scholarship to the public in a meaningful way using the news media” and comes with a $3,000 research stipend.

I would like to thank the Faculty Research Awards Committee for the honour.

This is the second year in a row that a professor from the Graduate School of Journalism has received the award. My colleague, acting school director Peter Klein won the award in 2010.

As one of the Faculty Research Award recipients, I will be giving a talk as part of Celebrate Research Week on how social media is changing the news on Wednesday March 7 at 12.30 p.m. at the Victoria Theatre, Room 182, at Irving K. Barber Learning Centre on campus.

All the 2011 recipients of UBC’s Faculty Research Awards will be honoured during this year’s Celebrate Research Week Awards Reception to be held on March 8, 2012 at the Museum of Anthropology.

Photo courtesy of Cardiff University’s Future of Journalism conference.

Also up for the award are Erica Ehm, who set up the online magazine YummyMummyClub.ca, and YouTube personality Nadine Sykora.

The winners will be announced on December 6th at the finale of nextMEDIA Toronto, one of Canada’s leading digital media conference.

The social media maven award recognizes “medialites that demonstrate innovation in creating and connecting online communities.”

It goes on to explain that  “the top Canadian social media mavens will have demonstrated leadership in the field, skillfully using social tools to bring in likes, check-ins, tweets, and more to deliver an unparalleled level of community engagement.”

The Digi Awards, formerly known as the Canadian New Media Awards, are described as“Canada’s premier showcase of the remarkable digital media companies, projects, products and pioneers that are placing Canada at the forefront of the international mediascape”.

The Canadian New Media Awards were founded in 1998 as Canada’s first nationwide platform recognizing the achievements of the fast-developing digital media landscape. They were rebranded last year as the Digi Awards.

The Digi Awards are organized by Achilles Media.