The Society for New Communication Research has opened the call for entries for its first annual awards program. The program is designed to recognize the best uses of social media by business, academic institutions, and professionals. What it’s not is a beauty contest—any entry that meets the criteria for excellence will be recognized. The idea behind the awards program is to surface examples of excellence that can be added to the SNCR’s store of knowledge.

In case you haven’t heard of it, the SNCR is a non-profit global think tank dedicated to the advanced study of new media and emerging modes of communication and their effect on media, business and society. (Disclosure: I’m a Research Fellow and a member of SNCR’s Advisory Board.)

The program will honor organizations and professionals who are pioneering the use of social media (blogs, wikis, podcasts, collaborative tools and other forms of participatory communications) in the areas of marketing, public relations and advertising, politics, entertainment, academics, and community and cultural development:

• SNCR Professional Awards ??? honours leading new communications thinkers, bloggers, journalists, citizen journalists and professional communicators
• SNCR Academic Awards ??? recognizes leading work/research/studies from students and academic institutions
• SNCR Business Awards ??? honours organizations that are successfully adopting new communications models and leveraging them in innovative ways for business purposes

The deadline for submissions is Sept. 8. You can read more in the Society’s newsrelease. (I hope you caught that: The Society for New Communication Research issued a—gasp—news release! Maybe they’re still viable after all!)