UNIVERSITY PARK — Patrick Lee Plaisance, the Don W. Davis Professor of Ethics in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, will receive one of the most prestigious awards for scholarship in communication and media ethics.
The Clifford G. Christians Ethics Research Award recognizes innovative theorizing in the field and is sponsored by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE). The award is named for Clifford Christians, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, a pioneer theorist who helped establish media ethics as a field of study in the 1980s and 1990s.
Plaisance earned the 2026 award is for the manuscript, “News Media Potentialities for Virtuous Maturation and Conation.” The award will be presented at the APPE annual conference in March in St. Louis.
“Cliff Christians’ mentorship was formative for me, which makes this a particularly special honor,” Plaisance said.
Plaisance’s manuscript maps out the significance of new moral psychology research on the development of reasoning skills. The “moral capacities” model argues that, as people mature, they develop a range of capabilities — including moral identity, moral efficacy and moral courage — that enable more sophisticated handling of moral dilemmas. Plaisance suggests that applying this capacities approach could help explain how habitual exposure to journalistic narratives may positively cultivate virtues such as curiosity, humility, resilience and civility.
This is the third time Plaisance has received the Christians award for his scholarship. He and Bellisario College doctoral alumna Lana Medina, now assistant professor at the University of St. Thomas, earned the award in 2024. Plaisance also received it in 2003.