Research Associate

Dr. Marcus Messner is an associate professor at the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Messner is also the school’s coordinator for research and innovation. His main research focus is on the growing influence and adoption of social media in journalism and public relations.

He has presented more than 40 research papers at national and international conferences and has published more than 20 articles in academic journals such as Newspaper Research Journal, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, Mass Communication & Society, and Public Relations Journal as well as in various books. Dr. Messner is a regular speaker on social media issues at professional meetings and events. He is also regularly interviewed by news media on social media issues. Interviews with him have appeared in various international and national media, such as CNN Headline News, National Public Radio, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Bloomberg, Voice of America, and USA Today.

Dr. Messner serves as Executive Director of the Center for Media+Health at VCU and as co-Academic Director of the Social Media Institute of the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program, which is sponsored by the U.S. State Department. He has secured more than $1 million in grant funding for various teaching and research projects. He has been named a “Promising Professor” and “Emerging Scholar” by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and has been recognized as one of the “most social media savvy professors” in the United States. He is also a past head of the AEJMC Communication Technology Division.

Dr. Messner is teaching in the undergraduate journalism program as well as in the graduate multimedia journalism program at VCU. He regularly teaches the following classes: Global Communication, Social Media Campaigns, Mobile and Social Media Journalism, Social Media Research and Business of Media. His “iPadJournos” mobile and social media reporting project has spearheaded the use of iPads as multimedia reporting devices.

Dr. Messner earned his Ph.D. in Communication and his M.A. in Print Journalism from the University of Miami in Florida and his B.A. in English Literature from Angelo State University in Texas. Before entering academia, Dr. Messner worked as a newspaper reporter, editor and correspondent in his native Germany and the U.S., covering politics and business.