Dr. Marcus Messner

Office: Temple 1110
Phone: (804) 827-0252
Email: mmessner@vcu.edu

Dr. Marcus Messner is an assistant professor at the School of Mass Communications, teaching journalism and mass communications classes. He joined VCU in the fall of 2007. Dr. Messner’s main research focus is on the growing influence of new media formats.

He has presented numerous research papers at national and international conferences and has published articles in academic journals and books. Dr. Messner is especially interested in the impact of social media on traditional news media coverage and political discourse as well as the adoption of these new media formats by media organizations.

Dr. Messner is teaching in the undergraduate print journalism program as well as the graduate multimedia journalism program. In recent semesters, he has taught the following classes:

MASC 151 – Global Communication
MASC 203 – Journalism Writing
MASC 303 – Beat Reporting for Print and the Web

MASC 491/691 – Social Media Networking

MASC 611 – Research Methods
MASC 642 – Online Journalism I
MASC 646 – Convergence Law and Ethics

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.

For more information on Dr. Messner’s research and teaching, please visit his personal website.