Eve Binder wins the 2015 OII MSc thesis prize; Atilla-Fillipe Cevik highly commended

It is a great pleasure to announce that the 2015 MSc Thesis Prize has been awarded to Eve Binder, for her thesis entitled “Can Gaming Inspire Giving? A Controlled Experiment on the Effectiveness of Gamification as a Fundraising Tool”.

In congratulating her, her supervisor Vili Lehdonvirta said “I’m extremely pleased that Eve got the prize this year, as I think she really deserves it. She worked very hard on her thesis, combining her own background with new skills and knowledge she acquired through coursework to produce a novel an exciting piece of research. She also made exemplary use of the expertise available at the department, interacting with several academics during the course of her project.”

In hearing of the award, Eve said: “Throughout this year I have been humbled by the outstanding abilities of my classmates, whose backgrounds have ranged from law to (as in my own case) literature. Their insights, combined with those of my supervisor Vili Lehdonvirta and the support of the OII, have helped me to mount a serious experiment on a previously unfamiliar topic. I’m honored and grateful to receive this award, which to me is confirmation that people of all disciplines can find meaning in social science.”

Also specially commended was Atilla-Fillipe Cevik, for his thesis on “Self Propaganda in Online Consumption”, which speaks directly to a range of pressing issues in online political engagement and communication, and has potentially important implications for this emerging field of research. His supervisor Jonathan Bright said “He tackled a complex body of theory with considerable skill, and his empirical work brought fascinating new insights to the field. He fully deserves his success.”

Atilla said “I am similarly surprised by and grateful for such recognition. Surprised, because I know of the excellent and interesting work many of my classmates were doing. Grateful, because some of them were instrumental for my own work, as they were priceless discussion partners throughout the course of the year. As were my supervisor Jonathan Bright and Ralph Schroeder. Overall, I am just delighted that I could work on a subject that I am truly interested in and convey this interest to the examiners’ board.”

The OII accepts up to 20 students a year for its MSc programme in Social Science of the Internet. The programme is designed to provide students with the in-depth understanding of the social science concepts, theories and methods required to undertake and assess rigorous empirical research or policy analysis of Internet-related issues.