The prize is awarded for outstanding dissertations by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.

Jana Laura Egelhofer received the Award of Excellence 2022, endowed with € 3,000, for her dissertation "I don't like it - let's call it 'fake' - The content and consequences of the fake news debate", which she completed with distinction in December 2021. The prize is awarded annually by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research of the Republic of Austria for the 40 best dissertations of the past academic year. Jana Laura Egelhofer's dissertation was supervised by Sophie Lecheler. 

The content of Jana Laura Egelhofer's dissertation dealt with how the term "fake news" was instrumentalised by politicians to discredit critical media, and how this procedure and other cases of media criticism influence the media perception of citizens.

You can find out more about Janas work and her dissertation here.