Film and Media Studies faculty sweep major national society awards

Four faculty members from the Department of Film and Media Studies have been recognized by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) for their 2026 awards cycle.

The awards, which honor outstanding scholarship, pedagogy and service in the field of media studies, will be presented at the society’s annual conference in Chicago on March 27.

Leading the cohort is Distinguished Professor Patrice Petro, who will receive the Distinguished Career Achievement Award. This honor recognizes scholars who have made significant, long-term contributions to the field.

Petro, who serves as the Presidential Chair in Media Studies at UCSB, previously served two terms as president of SCMS. She is the author or editor of 14 books, including “Uncanny Histories in Film and Media Studies” and “Aftershocks of the New: Feminism and Film History.”

Professor and Department Chair Jennifer Holt was awarded the Katherine Singer Kovács Book Award for her monograph “Cloud Policy: A History of Regulating Pipelines, Platforms, and Data” (MIT Press, 2024). The award honors the most original and influential book in the field published during the past year. Holt’s research focuses on digital media policy, cloud infrastructures and media industries.

Assistant Teaching Professor Jordan Schonig received the Katherine Singer Kovács Essay Award. His winning article, “Laborious Aesthetics: Visible and Invisible Labor in the Spider-Verse Franchise,” was published in the journal Animation. Schonig is also the author of the 2021 book “The Shape of Motion: Cinema and the Aesthetics of Movement.”

Additionally, Associate Professor Naoki Yamamoto was recognized as a contributor to “Global Movie Magazine Networks,” which won the Best Edited Collection Award.