Awards

2021 NAMLE Awards

At each national conference, NAMLE strives to honor those individuals and organizations who have exhibited impactful service, practice, or efforts that have greatly impacted the media literacy community and beyond. We invite NAMLE members to submit nominations for this year’s awards to be presented at NAMLE’s 2021 conference, which will be held virtually from July 16-18, 2021.

Please note, current NAMLE staff and board members are not eligible for nomination. All nominators and winners should make every effort to attend the conference in order to present/accept their award.

2021 AWARD WINNERS

NPR’s Code Switch
Media Literate Media Award

NPR’s Code Switch podcast is a multi-racial, multi-generational team of journalists fascinated by the overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting.

DISCLOSURE
Media Literate Media Award

DISCLOSURE, an original Netflix documentary, is an unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender.

Scene on Radio
Media Literate Media Award

Scene on Radio is a Peabody-nominated podcast that tells stories exploring human experience and American society. With podcast series’ like “Seeing White,” “Men,” and “The land that never has been yet,” listeners are educated and enlightened about history and the human condition. Produced and hosted by John Biewen, Scene on Radio comes from the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University and is distributed by PRX.

Jeff Share
Elizabeth Thoman Service Award

Jeff Share’s research and practice focuses on preparing educators and university students to teach critical media literacy in K-12 education, for the goals of social and environmental justice. He has worked as an award-winning photojournalist, bilingual elementary school teacher, and since 2007, he has been educating new teachers in the Teacher Education Program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Jeff presents nationally and internationally at conferences, provides professional development at schools, and writes about critical media literacy and environmental justice. He has trained educators in critical media literacy in the United States, India, Iraq, China, Mexico, and Argentina. An updated second edition of his book, Media Literacy is Elementary: Teaching Youth to Critically Read and Create Media, was published in 2015. Two years later Routledge published the book he co-wrote with Richard Beach and Allen Webb titled, Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents: Reading, Writing, and Making a Difference. Collaborating with Douglas Kellner in 2019, they published, The Critical Media Literacy Guide: Engaging Media and Transforming Education. (https://jshare.wixsite.com/jeffshare)

Jamie Gregory
Media Literacy Teacher Award

Jamie is the Upper School librarian and journalism/newspaper teacher at Christ Church Episcopal School in Greenville, SC. She is a National Board Certified Teacher in Library Media, finishing her 8th year as a high school librarian. She spent her first 8 years in public education as a high school English and French teacher, journalism teacher, yearbook and newspaper adviser, and AP English Language and Composition teacher before earning her MLIS degree from the University of South Carolina in 2012. She is an active member of the South Carolina Association of School Librarians, having served as the 2019-2020 Chair of the SC Book Awards programs. She was a judge for the 2021 YALSA Morris Award and is currently in her 3rd year of blogging for ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom blog. She completed freelance work with the News Literacy Project in 2020, helping develop the creation of a framework for teaching news literacy. She has presented sessions on high school literacy, guided inquiry-based learning, and news literacy at the South Carolina Association of School Librarians’ annual conferences as well as a webinar “Information Literacy and Elections” in October 2020. She will present a session at the SCASL summer institute in June 2021 on the new basics of information, media, and news literacy and will co-present a session “After Banned Books Week: Intellectual Freedom Programming Throughout the Year” in October 2021 at the national conference for the American Association of School Librarians. She has also published articles in School Library Monthly, VOYA, Teacher Librarian, and online with School Library Curriculum and Teen Librarian Toolbox.

Pamela Pereyra
Media Literacy Community Award

Pamela Pereyra is passionate about helping marginalized communities, working to develop the capacity of youth and adults, design learning, lead trainings and advocate for good citizenship with media and technology. As founder and CEO of Media Savvy Citizens and New Mexico chair of Media Literacy Now, she creates media literate communities.

Belinha De Abreu
Media Literacy Researcher Award

Belinha S. De Abreu, PhD. is a global media literacy educator and President of the International Council for Media Literacy (IC4ML). She has served as an International Expert to the Forum on Media & Information Literacy for UNESCO’s Communication & Information Section.  She is the founder of the International Media Literacy Research Symposium and the World Media Literacy Forum, as well as author of Teaching Media Literacy (ALA: Neal-Schuman, 2019).

AWARD DESCRIPTIONS

Elizabeth Thoman Service Award

Formerly known as the Meritorious Service Award, the Elizabeth Thoman Service Award honors those who have given many years of service to the field of media literacy. NAMLE re-named the award this year in honor of Elizabeth Thoman, founding board member of NAMLE. This award recognizes individuals or projects that have significantly contributed to the growth and quality of the field of media literacy over the years. 

Media Literacy Teacher Award 

This award is given in each conference year to a K12 teacher integrating a strong media literacy curriculum. The award may be given to a teacher in any subject area, as long as their curriculum reflects strong integration of media literacy concepts as detailed in the CPMLE.

Media Literacy Community Award (Formerly Outstanding Volunteer Award)

This award is intended to honor those who have committed significant time and energy in building the media literacy community. Nominees exemplify a spirit of generosity and collaboration to move the media literacy movement forward. 

Media Literacy Researcher Award

This award specifically recognizes a researcher advancing the field of media literacy.

Media Literate Media Award

The Media Literate Media Awards are designed to interest mainstream media in doing, covering or including media literacy in their work by recognizing outstanding contributions made by mainstream media professionals with national reach.

The Media Literate Media Awards recognize people, programs, initiatives, or organizations in mainstream media that:

  • Have raised the visibility of media literacy education or media literacy or,
  • Have helped citizens better understand media literacy education or media literacy, or
  • Have provided significant, outstanding resources that enhance the ability of educators to practice the kind of inquiry-based media literacy education.

View a complete list of past award winners here.

Questions?

Questions about the award nomination process? Contact the Awards Committee Chair, Bobbie Eisenstock at conference@namle.net.