Mandy Tröger

Mandy Tröger is a researcher at the Institute of Media Studies within the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tübingen. She received her PhD from the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018, with a dissertation on the transformation of the East German press that earned her the Young Researcher Award from the Communication History Section of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK). Prior to her current position, she worked at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. From 2023-2025, she held a prestigious Walter Benjamin Fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) at the University of Tübingen.

Dr. Tröger's educational background includes a bachelor's degree in North American and West Asian History and Sociology from the University of Erfurt, a master's degree in American Studies from the University of Amsterdam (where she also worked as a news editor), and doctoral studies at UIUC. Born and raised in East Berlin, her personal background deeply informs her scholarly perspective on German reunification and media transformation.

Her research focuses on media and communication history, the transformation of media systems, critical theory, and particularly the political economy of media. She has specialized expertise in the transformation of GDR media, media economics, and journalism, with current research investigating the role of the Treuhandanstalt in the privatization of the East German press. Her scholarly work examines how market forces, political interests, and historical contexts shape media systems, with particular attention to the structural inequalities that emerge during periods of rapid societal change.

Dr. Tröger has received recognition for her scholarly contributions, most notably the Young Researcher Award from DGPuK for her dissertation. Her work bridges historical analysis with contemporary media challenges, particularly examining how historical media transformations inform current issues in digital capitalism and platform governance.

She is actively engaged in the academic community, serving as co-editor of the journal Journalism since 2024, deputy chair of the Political Economy Group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) since 2022, and as a member of the organizational team of the Critical Communication Studies Network (KriKoWi) since 2017. She also contributes public scholarship as a media columnist for the Berliner Zeitung, where she addresses contemporary media issues from a critical historical perspective.

Her teaching reflects her research interests, with courses including 'Media at War — War in the Media,' 'News Media and Internet Oligopolies,' 'Diversity in Media Management,' and 'Who owns the Media?' at institutions including the University of Tübingen, Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, and LMU Munich. She has developed specialized expertise in teaching critical approaches to media ownership, political economy, and historical context.