Graduate students Hyun-a Park (PhD Program) and Ji-an Kang (Master's Program) of the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting each received the Excellence Award in the research proposal contest of the 'Hyundai Home Shopping–Korean Association for Journalism and Communication Studies Early Career Scholar Support Project' held at the recent autumn regular academic conference of the Korean Association for Journalism and Communication Studies.

At the conference, conducted in a hybrid online and offline format, Hyun-a Park participated in the Early-Career Researchers and PhD Candidates pitching session and presented a research proposal titled 'Is There Class in Virtual Spaces?'.

Her study expands the currently popular bu-chae (secondary character/persona) phenomenon into virtual spaces to analyze the relationship between multi-personas and Bourdieu's concept of cultural taste. It was praised for its originality.

Meanwhile, Ji-an Kang presented a research proposal in the master's pitching session titled 'The Effects of Cultural Capital and Social Capital on the Place Attachment Intentions of Jeongeup Youth.' Focusing on social and cultural capital as factors that increase local youths' place attachment intentions, she proposed to examine the moderating effect of local media use. The proposal drew attention.

The Korean Association for Journalism and Communication Studies (President Seon-hee Park) has organized a 'Research Proposal Pitching Session' since 2019 for early-career scholars and PhD and master's students to support innovative research by future academic generations.