Robert Payne
Professor, Department Chair 鈥� Communication, Media and Culture
- Department: Communication, Media and Culture
- Graduate Program(s): Global Communications
Professor Payne joined The American University of Paris in 2008 after teaching for several years at universities in his home country,听Australia. In his research, he is primarily interested in gender and sexuality in media and popular culture, and how queer theory can generate new approaches for media studies scholarship.听He has published widely in these fields, focusing on such听topics as the construction of masculinity听on gay dating websites and听Australian TV, the circulation of panic in the mediation of gender and sexuality, the inherent queerness of social media discourses, and the queer potential of deteriorated media experiences.
Payne has published two monographs. The first, The Promiscuity of Network Culture: Queer Theory and Digital Media听(Routledge 2015)听takes as a point of departure the resignification of "viral" circulation for a digital media context.听The book听examines the multiple intimacies that characterize network culture, including the everyday practices of "sharing" on social media. Interrogating a wide range of examples, from Facebook to viral celebrity to the Abu Ghraib photos, the book uncovers the queer and entrepreneurial听logic governing听what circulates in digital networks and how we talk about them.
His second monograph,听L'Homme bless茅, published in the Queer Film Classics series by McGill-Queen's University Press (2022), is a book-length study of the pioneering 1983 French film by director Patrice Ch茅reau, paying particular attention to the film's visual grammar of queer desire, the social and political circumstances of the film's production, and its reception in various international contexts.听听
Payne's current research explores the听materialities听of听everyday听media, in particular the spaces, infrastructures, objects, and affects听that characterise and make possible our encounters with media.
Education/Degrees
- PhD, University of Sydney, Australia
- BA (Hons I), University of Sydney, Australia
Publications
Books
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Journal articles and book chapters
"Mining masculinities in song: intimate geographies of blue-collar resistance,"听Gender, Place & Culture, 2025. Co-authored with Vincent Bos.听DOI:听
"Queer by numbers, or what is happening to popular discourses of LGBTQ+ media representation?"听Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, vol 9, no. 2, 2024, pp. 183-199.
"Like Living in a Different Time Zone: SBS's Queer Orientations."听Television Studies in Queer Times, edited by F. Hollis Griffin, Routledge, 2023, pp. 51-64.
鈥淧roductivity and Promiscuity: Paying Undivided Attention鈥� in Communication in the Era of Attention Scarcity. Ed. Waddick Doyle and Claudia Roda. Palgrave, 2019, 129-139.
"Lossy Media: Queer Encounters with Infrastructure", Open Cultural Studies 2 (2018). Available online at:
"Je suis Charlie": Viral Circulation and the Ambivalence of Affective Citizenship, International Journal of Cultural Studies (2016): doi:10.1177/1367877916675193
鈥淔rictionless sharing and digital promiscuity鈥�, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (2014). DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2013.873942
鈥淰irality 2.0: Networked promiscuity and the sharing subject鈥�, Cultural Studies 27.4 (2013): 540-560.
"But what about the dinosaurs?: A Response to Damien Riggs", Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 14.1 (2013): 94-98.
"Introduction: Citizenship and Queer Critique", Sexualities 15.3-4 (2012): 251-256 (co-authored with Cristyn Davies).
"Grid Failure: Metaphors of Subcultural Time and Space" in Queer and Subjugated Knowledges: Generating Subversive Imaginaries. Ed. Kerry Robinson and Cristyn Davies. Bentham e-books, 2012.
鈥淒ancing with the ordinary: masculine celebrity performance on Australian TV鈥�, Continuum 23.3 (2009): 295-306.
鈥淧erforming the Ethics of Conversation: a review of Judith Butler in Conversation: Analyzing the Texts and Talk of Everyday Life鈥�, GLQ 15.1 (2009): 177-179.
鈥淰irtual panic: children online and the transmission of harm鈥� in Moral Panics over Contemporary Children and Youth. Ed. Charles Krinsky. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, 31-46.
鈥淪kylarking: homosexual panic and the death of Private Kovco鈥�, Cultural Studies Review 14.2 (2008): 34-48.
鈥沦迟谤8补肠迟颈苍驳鈥�, Social Semiotics 17.4 (2007): 525-538.
"Grid: On Being-as-Transmission and Normativity." M/C Journal 9.1 (2006).
鈥淒igital memories, analogues of affect鈥�, SCAN: Journal of media arts culture 1.3 (2004).
鈥淰irtually: the refreshment of interface value鈥�, Postmodern Culture 14.3 (2004).
鈥淐onfessing the Violent: Projected Deviance in American Psycho and Talk Show TV鈥�, Anatomies of Violence: an Interdisciplinary Investigation. Ed. R. Walker, et al. Sydney: Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, 2000, 169-79.
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Edited journal issues
鈥淐itizenship and queer critique鈥�, special issue of Sexualities 15.3-4 (2012), co-edited with Cristyn Davies.
鈥淧anic鈥�, special issue of Cultural Studies Review 14.2 (2008), co- edited with Cristyn Davies
Research Areas
* Digital media听
* Social media and network culture听
* Gender studies and queer theory听
* Gender and听sexuality in听media and popular culture
*Affect theory
*Materiality and media