The second place of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation Award for Social Science Essays of 2018, endowed with 1000 EUR, goes to
Dr. Sascha Hölig for his article "Eine meinungsstarke Minderheit als Stimmungsbarometer?! Über die Persönlichkeitseigenschaften aktiver Twitterer [Sensing the Atmosphere? On the Personal Characteristics of Active Twitter Users]", published in our journal "Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft [Media & Communication Studies]", issue 2, 2018, pp. 140-169 (
available online). It is the only journal award in the social sciences outside the English-speaking area.
The award of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for Social Science Essays highlights the journal article as a means of scientific communication. The award is known beyond the field of social sciences and has a special significance, not least, because it is one of the few awards that is interdisciplinary in the various fields of social sciences and is awarded by an interdisciplinary committee, which is a rarity in the university landscape in Germany.
For the year 2018, journal editors proposed 17 articles for the award. In its meeting on 5 July 2019, the jury decided to award a first, two second and one third place for this year. Information on the other winners of the 2019 awards can be found
here (pdf).
On the Fritz Thyssen Award
The award was initiated by Prof. Erwin K. Scheuch and has been sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation since the first award ceremony in 1981. It is coordinated by the
Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology (until 2012 by the Research Institute for Sociology) at the University of Cologne.
The selection of the work takes place in two stages. The publishers and editors of 18 German-speaking journals in the social sciences each propose one article per year, in justified exceptional cases two, which are then reviewed by a jury.
The journals are:
- Berliner Journal für Soziologie
- Geschichte und Gesellschaft
- Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte
- Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie
- Leviathan
- Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft
- Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft
- Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie
- Politische Vierteljahresschrift
- Publizistik
- Swiss Journal of Sociology
- Swiss Political Science Review
- Soziale Welt
- Zeitschrift für internationale Beziehungen
- Zeitschrift für Politik
- Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft
- Zeitschrift für Soziologie
- Zeitschrift für vergleichende Politikwissenschaft
The jury is currently consisting of the following persons:
- Prof. Marita Jacob, University of Cologne (since 2012, chairwoman)
- Prof. Philip Manow, Bremen University (since 2014)
- Prof. Alexander Nützenadel, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (since 2017)
- Prof. Ortwin Renn, University of Stuttgart (since 2014)
- Prof. Manfred G. Schmidt, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (since 2005)
- Prof. Heike Solga, Freie Universität Berlin (since 2017)
- Prof. Ferdinand Sutterlüty, Goethe University Frankfurt (since 2017)
- Prof. Hartmut Wessler, University of Mannheim (since 2018)
- Dr. Joel Binckli, University of Cologne (since 2012, coordinator)
