Research Interests:
Dr. Drager has several research interests that fall under the broad categories of mass media and public policy, media law and ethics, and newspaper and news magazine content. Within these broad categories he has focused on First Amendment rights and issues; fairness, balance and defamation in news reporting; empirical analysis of the case law theory of the marketplace of ideas; structural and cultural effects on editorial page content; and social issues and editorial specificity.

Within the category of mass media and public policy, he is especially interested in media influence on and interpretation of social issues. Although his research methods tend to be quantitative in nature (surveys and content analyses), he also uses qualitative methods (focus groups and long interviews).

Teaching Interests:
Dr. Drager teaches undergraduate courses in journalism.