Elisabeth U. Wagner-Olfermann

In February 2023, she spent a week as a guest lecturer at our partner university, the Nicholson School of Communication and Media at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

In 2021, she was the first winner of the PolKom Kickstarter Fund of the DGPuK specialist group "Political Communication" and the Young Talent Network for Political Communication (NapoKo). The funds raised, together with another research grant from the Equal Opportunities Council of TU Ilmenau, were used to collect data as part of her dissertation.

Between 2018 and 2019, she was deputy spokesperson for mid-level researchers at the IfMK. Since fall 2022, she has been Deputy Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Media.

Elisabeth U. Wagner-Olfermann has been a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the Department of Public Relations and Technology Communication at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies (IfMK) at Ilmenau University of Technology since 2017. Among other things, she is responsible for the PR career orientation seminar in the 3rd and 4th semesters of our Bachelor's program.

During and after this time, she continued to work as a junior consultant at Gentinetta*Scholten, commuting between Zurich and Berlin.

From 2013 to 2016, she completed her Master's degree in Media and Political Communication (M.A.) at the Free University of Berlin.

From 2012 to 2013, she worked as an intern at the political and communications consultancy Gentinetta*Scholten and at the agency BERTA KOmmunikation AG in Zurich.

From 2009 to 2013, she completed her Bachelor's degree in Communication Science and Social Science (B.A.) at the University of Erfurt. During her studies, Elisabeth U. Wagner-Olfermann was a tutor at the Department of Media and Communication Studies and a student assistant at the Chair of Social Communication.

Winter semester 2022/23

Professional orientation PR

Summer semester 2022

Professional orientation PR, together with Tatjana Faj

International Crisis Communication Research, together with Dr. Andreas Schwarz

Winter semester 2021/22

Professional orientation PR, together with Tatjana Faj

Summer semester 2021

PR career orientation, together with Tatjana Faj

Summer semester 2019

PR career orientation, together with Tatjana Faj

Global PR, together with Dr. Andreas Schwarz

Winter semester 2018/19

PR career orientation, together with Tatjana Faj

Summer semester 2018

PR career orientation, together with Tatjana Faj

Winter semester 2017/18

PR career orientation, together with Tatjana Faj

Elisabeth Wagner-Olfermann is interested in the research areas of the European public sphere, political communication, crisis communication in the European context as well as strategic communication and public relations. In her dissertationshe explores the question of how European media construct cross-border political leadership in crises.

Andreas Schwarz, Francis Alpers, Elisabeth Wagner-Olfermann & Audra Diers-Lawson (2023) The Global Study of COVID News: Scope, Findings, and Implications of Quantitative Content Analyses of the COVID-19 News Coverage in the First Two Years of the Pandemic, Health Communication. DOI: https: //doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2023.2226932

Wagner-Olfermann, E. (2022). Political leadership in transboundary crises, responsibility attributions, and the role of the media: a synthesis of previous research and theoretical extension. Annals of the International Communication Association, 1-15. doi:10.1080/23808985.2022.2120520

Olfermann, E. U. (2017). At the end of a special path? The representation of Swiss European policy in press coverage in German-speaking Switzerland between March 2009 and January 2014. In J. Echterbruch, J. Geuecke, N. Jungmann & T. Schnödewind (Eds.), Populism, Terror and Electoral Decisions in Old and New Media. Düsseldorfer Forum Politische Kommunikation Vol. 7, (pp. 55-74). Berlin: Frank & Timme.

Kamps, K., Fischer, F., Michaelis, I., & Olfermann, E. U. (2014). Information, emotion, expertise: An experiment on the effect of journalistic representations in health communication. In V. Lilienthal, D. Reineck & T. Schneller (Eds.), Quality in health journalism: Perspectives from science and practice (pp. 139-156). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Schwarz, Andreas & Wagner-Olfermann, Elisabeth (2026, accepted). Risk Perception and Information Seeking in the Transition to Sustainable Mobility: Insights from a Rural Germany Field Study. International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference (ICRCC), Clemson (USA), 9 - 11.03.2026.

Wagner-Olfermann, E.U. (2025). A Comparative Analysis of the mediated European Responsibility Discourse during the Migrations Crisis and COVID-19. 50 Years Conference of Communications. The European Journal of Communication Research, Leipzig, 29. & 30.09.2025. 

Wagner-Olfermann, E. U. (2025). Media’s Construction of Political Leadership in Transboundary Crises. Deconstructing Mediated Responsibility Negotiations in a Multilevel Political System. ECREA CRISIS 8, Bukarest, 15. - 17.09.2025.

Wagner-Olfermann, E. U. (2023). Media's Construction of Political Leadership in Transboundary Crises. A Comparative Analysis of the Responsibility Discourse in European Media during the Migration Crisis and the Coronavirus Pandemic. ECREA Political Communication Section Conference, Berlin, 31.08.2023.

Schwarz, A.; Alpers, F. & Wagner-Olfermann, E. U. (2022). The global study of COVID-19 news coverage: A meta-analysis of scope, methodological quality, theoretical lenses, and cross-national findings. 9th European Communication Conference, Aarhus, 20.10.2022.

Wagner-Olfermann, E. U. (2022). Media's Construction of Political Leadership in Transboundary Crises. A comparative analysis of the responsibility discourse in European media during the migration crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. 72nd Annual Conference of the ICA, Paris, 31.05.2022.

Wagner-Olfermann, E.U. (2021). Media's Construction of Political Leadership in Transboundary Crises. After the "Summer Of Migration": Right-Wing Populism, Media and Affects, Ljubljana, 16 - 17.09.2021

Wagner-Olfermann, E. U. (2018). The media construction of political leadership in cross-border crises. A comparative study of the media discourse of responsibility in European media coverage during the refugee crisis. 9th NapoKo Colloquium of the Junior Research Network for Political Communication, Mainz, 16.11.2018.

Wagner-Olfermann, E. U. (2018). Media's construction of political leadership in transboundary crises. 7th European Communication Conference, Lugano, 01.11.2018.

Olfermann, E. U. (2016). At the end of a special path? The representation of Swiss European policy in press coverage in German-speaking Switzerland between March 2009 and January 2014. Düsseldorf Forum for Political Communication, Düsseldorf, 15.04.2016.

• European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)

• German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK)

• Junior Research Network for Political Communication (NapoKo)

• International Research Group on Crisis Communication (IRGoCC)

2021: First winner of the PolKom Kickstarter Fund of the DGPuK specialist group "Political Communication" and the Young Talent Network for Political Communication (NapoKo).