Rate My Professor Michael Wagner

Wagner's research investigates how elements of the information environment interact with individual factors to shape political beliefs, preferences, participation, and behavior. His four main lines of inquiry include the effects of mediated political messages, interactions of psychological and contextual factors, influences of news logics on coverage, and industry-academic collaborations. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in top journals such as Science (“Independence by Permission: Industry-Academic Collaboration and Meta’s U.S. 2020 Election Project,” 2023), Journal of Communication, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Political Communication, as well as books like Battleground: Asymmetric Communication Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin (co-authored, Cambridge University Press, 2022), Mediated Democracy: Politics, the News and Citizenship in the 21st Century (co-authored, CQ Press, 2020), and Political Behavior of the American Electorate (multiple editions, CQ Press). Wagner has secured over $11 million in research funding and delivered more than 350 public lectures worldwide. He has won five university-wide teaching awards, including the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2019), and top research paper awards from the International Communication Association and AEJMC. Wagner has advised more than 10 Ph.D. dissertations, moderated debates for U.S. Senate, Wisconsin Supreme Court, and Attorney General races, and held editorial positions such as Founding Editor of the Forum in Political Communication (2016-2023) and Associate Editor of Public Opinion Quarterly (2021-present).