The Anatomy of Accolades and their Related Communications: A Case Study of the Nobel Prizes

Abstract

Accolades are proliferating around the world, increasingly accompanied by communications that are growing in size and diversity. Popular understandings of accolades and their related communications are narrow. Existing scholarship about them is limited and particularistic, and does not offer an elemental account of their core components. This study addresses these gaps in knowledge. It makes three arguments. First, it contends that accolades are intrinsically media and communication entities; awards and prizes are representational media used in communication processes that entail publicity. Second, accolades and their related communications are fundamentally strategic and, at their heart, normative; they are purposefully produced with the aim of publicising at least one norm (a standard or criterion) and one normative judgement (a commendation or discommendation: that is, a positive or negative evaluation). Third, these strategic and normative dimensions are significantly influenced by the accolade-giver’s priorities and broader group context; consequently, the accolades and communications convey content that is disputable, as it reflects the giver’s particular intentions and the group’s non-universal values, which are contested by other social groups. A case study of the Nobel Prize organisations is used to substantiate these arguments. The organisations’ communications are critically examined through rhetorical analysis and institutional personnel interviews. As such, the original contribution to knowledge of this thesis is its development of a media- and communication-based conceptualisation of accolades and their related communications.