Michael is Professor of Communication Studies, Climate, and Science Communication at the University of Hamburg. He co-chairs the project Social Constructions of Climate Futures at the cluster of excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS). In his current research, he focuses on climate communication and the communicative dimension of socio-ecological transformations: exploring how journalism, digital media networks, and different social actors co-produce and shape public debates about global ecological challenges. Recently, Michael has explored the lack of climate coverage in the news, as well as emerging practices of transformative journalism and tendencies towards discursive polarization.

Michael joined THE NEW INSTITUTE in the academic year 2023/24 as Chair for the program „Depolarizing Public Debates: Developing Tools for Transformative Communication”.