Marcus Maurer holds the chair of Political Communication at the Department of Communication at JGU Mainz, Germany. Earlier, he was Professor of Empirical Methods at FSU Jena and Visiting Professor at the University of Zurich, LMU Munich, and FU Berlin. From 2011 until 2017, he was member of the DFG Research Group “Political Communication in the Online World”. His research has dealt with media effects in various election campaigns, including effects of televised debates, social bots, and political microtargeting.