Celeste Wagner is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism at University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications and is also an Affiliate Faculty at the Center for Latin American Studies. She received a Ph.D. in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2022. Previously, she obtained a Licenciatura (BA) in Communication from Universidad de San Andrés in Argentina in 2013, her home country, and an MA in Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2018.

Dr. Wagner studies processes of media reception and influence around political and social issues, particularly intersecting gender inequalities in the Americas. Methodologically, her research draws from qualitative interviewing methods, surveys, experiments and comparative approaches. Fieldwork for her research has been conducted in Argentina and the United States.

Some of her recent publications analyze the reception of Turkish television dramas in Argentina (Journal of Communication); the emotional experiences, interpretations, and practices of consuming news and perceived misinformation during times of political polarization in the U.S. (Journalism, Digital Journalism); the role of the perceived gender of journalists on the promotion of ideas around the severity of sexual harassment (Cuadernos.info); and the experiences of watching television entertainment in Argentina and the United States (International Journal of Communication).

Dr. Wagner has received three awards for her dissertation research: the 2023 National Communication Association’s Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Dissertation Award, the 2023 Lynda Lee Kaid Outstanding Dissertation Award at the National Communication Association’s Political Communication Division, and the 2023 Best Dissertation Award at the Global Communication and Social Change Division at the International Communication Association.

She is currently working on a series of projects. With E. Mitchelstein, P. J. Boczkowski, and F. Suenzo, they are working on a book manuscript based on interviews, surveys and experiments during the Argentine 2019 elections, titled The Patina of Distrust: Misinformation in a Context of Generalized Skepticism, under contract with The MIT Press; the role of partisanship and gender in people’s assessment of sexual harassment scandals involving politicians in the U.S. (with Jin Woo Kim); a study on the role of a survivor/victim’s racialized ethnicity and class backgrounds on news audiences’ responses in Argentina and the U.S.; Argentinian and U.S. feminist activists' interpretations and interventions in communication for gender equality, among others.

Dr. Wagner currently teaches an undergraduate class titled “Media, Cultures and Identity,” a graduate level course on "Academic Writing" and an upper-level undergraduate course on "Women and Gender in Media" (co-taught). Previously, in both Argentina and the United States, she taught introduction to communication, history of the media, social scientific methods, and critical approaches to popular culture. In 2015, she received a Teaching Award at Universidad de San Andrés, given to the best Teaching Assistant at the university.

Among other appointments, she is a faculty affiliate at the Center for Latinx Digital Media at Northwestern University; a member of the organizing committee of the “Media & Communication in Global Latinidades” Pre-Conference at ICA; a research affiliate at the Center for Media and Society in Argentina, and a member of Digital Journalism’s Editorial Board.