Associate Professor

About

  • Find Me On:

    linkedin

  • Website:

    Research Gate Profile

  • Role:

    Faculty

  • Position:

    • Associate Professor

  • Concentration:

    • Journalism
    • New media
    • Media sociology
    • Media law and policy
    • Qualitative research methods
    • Political communication

  • Department:

    • Journalism & Media Communication

  • Education:

    • Ph.D.
    • J.D.

Biography

Dr. Wolfgang teaches Communication Law, Media in Society, Qualitative Research Methods, and Social and Cultural Communication Theory. His research focuses on public discourse, journalism studies, and media sociology. In particular, he studies the relationship between journalists and their audiences. He is also interested in journalist role conceptions, representations of minority groups in media, political communication, and new media. His research utilizes textual analysis, ethnography, interviews, and survey methods and has appeared in publications such as Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, Digital Journalism, and the Journal of Public Deliberation.
Wolfgang holds three degrees from the University of Missouri (Ph.D., Journalism, 2016; J.D., 2012; M.A., Journalism, 2011) and received his BA in Contemporary Media and Journalism from the University of South Dakota in 2008.

Publications

Wolfgang, J.D., Blackburn, H., & McConnell, S. (In Press). Keepers of the comments: How comment moderators handle audience contributions. Newspaper Research Journal.

Wolfgang, J.D. (In Press). Marketplace of Ideas. In Harris, P., Bitoni, A., Fleisher, C.S., & Skorkjær, A.B. (Eds.). The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wolfgang, J.D. (In Press). Taming the “trolls”: How journalists negotiate the boundaries of journalism and online comments. Journalism.

Wolfgang, J.D., McConnell, S., & Blackburn, H. (2020). Commenters as a threat to journalism? How comment moderators perceive the role of the audience. Digital Journalism, 8(7), 925-944.

Houston, J.B., McKinney, M., Thorson, E., Hawthorne, J., Wolfgang, J.D., & Swasy, A. (2020). The Twitterization of Journalism: User Perceptions of News Tweets. Journalism.

Wolfgang, J.D., Vos, T., & Kelling, K. (2019). Journalism's Relationship to Democracy: Roles, attitudes, and practices. Journalism Studies, 20(14), 1977-1994.

Wolfgang, J.D. (2019). Online Comments and Journalism. In Örnebring, H. (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Wolfgang, J.D. (2019). Commenters as political actors infringing on the field of journalism. Journalism Studies, 20(8), 1149-1166.

Wolfgang, J.D., & Jenkins, J. (2018). Crafting a Community: Staff members’ conceptions of audience at a city magazine. Community Journalism.

Wolfgang, J.D. (2018). How Commenters Use Online Forums as Spaces for Journalism’s Boundary Work. Newspaper Research Journal.

Wolfgang, J.D. (2018). Cleaning up the “Fetid Swamp”: Examining how journalists construct policies and practices for moderating comments. Digital Journalism.

Vos, T.P., & Wolfgang, J.D. (2018). Journalists’ Normative Constructions of Political Viewpoint Diversity. Journalism Studies.

Jenkins, J., & Wolfgang, J.D. (2018). The Naked Truth: An analysis of postfeminism in media discourse in response to the Kardashians’ nude magazine images. In C. Madere (Ed.) Star Power: The Media Effects of America’s Celebrity Culture.

Jenkins, J. & Wolfgang, J.D. (2018). A Space for Women: Online Commenting Forums as Indicators of Civility and Feminist Community-Building. In J. Vickery & T. Everbach (Eds.) Mediating Misogyny: Gender, Technology, and Harassment. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jenkins, J., & Wolfgang, J.D. (2018). Feminized Faith: The intersectionality of religion and gender in “Orange is the New Black.” In K. Foss (Ed.) Demystifying the Big House: Exploring Prison Experience and Media Representations. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press.

Thomas, R.J., Kelling, K., Wolfgang, J.D., & Greenwood, K. (2018). Discourses of Compassion British Newspapers and the Alan Kurdi Image. In R. Thomas & M.G. Antony (Eds.) Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Migrants: Seen but Not Heard. Lanham, MD: Lexington.

Jenkins, J., & Wolfgang, J.D. (2017). A Place to Protest: Assessing alternative newsweeklies’ ideal roles and creation of alternative publics. Journalism Practice, 4(6), 960-979.

Wolfgang, J.D. (2016). Pursuing the Ideal: How news website commenting policies structure public discourse. Digital Journalism 4(6), 764-783.

Ferrucci, P., Tandoc, E., Painter, C., & Wolfgang, J.D. (2016). Foul Ball: Audience-held stereotypes of baseball players. The Howard Journal of Communications 27(1), 68-84.

Craft, S., Vos, T.P., & Wolfgang, J.D. (2016). Reader Comments as Press Criticism: Implications for the journalistic field. Journalism: Theory, Practice, & Criticism 17(6), 677-693.

Wolfgang, J.D. (2015). Opening the Marketplace: A case for the protection of anonymous online comments. In B. Vanacker & D. Heider (Eds.) Ethics for a Digital Age. New York: Peter Lang.

Wolfgang, J.D., & Jenkins, J. (2015). Diverse Discourse: Analyzing the potential of public affairs magazine online forums to reflect qualities of the public sphere. Journal of Public Deliberation, 11(1), Article 5, 1-26.