Good news from Brussels for Daniel Ziegele, M.A., from the University of Leipzig:
The research assistant at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies today received the "Best Master Thesis Award" from the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) for his thesis "Work stress among communication professionals. A comparative study between Germany and the United States". The study was supervised by Professor Ansgar Zerfaß, Leipzig, and Professor Juan Meng from the University of Georgia, USA. For the study, 40 managers and younger employees in communication agencies in both countries were interviewed and a total of 1,200 minutes of material were qualitatively analysed.
In addition, the paper "Stress Resilience: A Key Competence For Professionals In Public Relations", written by Daniel Ziegele together with Ansgar Zerfaß, received a Best Paper Award at this year's EUPRERA conference. The award is based on the results of a two-stage anonymous review process of all submitted papers by international academics. The paper draws on empirical data from the above-mentioned work, embeds it in the international professional debate and draws conceptual conclusions. The laudation for the prize states: (The authors) "investigated day-to-day stressors and differences in stress management between practitioners with high and those with low resilience profiles. This is a highly interesting study able to provide a good overview of main drivers of stress and resilience profiles, while also discussing opportunities to build stress resilience competence especially from the perspective of organisational measures. Stress resilience is certainly an interesting topic, especially during a global crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic. The related results generate relevant insights and food for thought also for those not working in PR agencies."
EUPRERA, based in Brussels, is the European professional association of university institutes, research institutions and researchers in the field of public relations and strategic communication with almost 500 members from 40 countries. It has been networking the scientific community with each other and with practitioners since 1959. Numerous cooperations with professional societies in other regions support the international visibility and impact of European research.
The award for the best Master's thesis in Europe went for the fourth time (after 2015, 2016 and 2018) to a graduate of the Leipzig Master's programme Communication Management. At the same time, the annual BdKoM Talent Award for the best German-language Master's thesis also went to Leipzig this year (announcement). These recognitions are an expression of the close integration of research and teaching at the Institute.