Robert Payne
Professor, Department Chair – 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,ĚýAustralia. 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.ĚýHe has published widely in these fields, focusing on suchĚýtopics as the construction of masculinityĚýon gay dating websites andĚýAustralian 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 MediaĚý(Routledge 2015)Ěýtakes as a point of departure the resignification of "viral" circulation for a digital media context.ĚýThe bookĚýexamines 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 entrepreneurialĚýlogic governingĚýwhat circulates in digital networks and how we talk about them.
His second monograph,ĚýL'Homme blessĂ©, 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 ChĂ©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.ĚýĚý
Payne's current research explores theĚýmaterialitiesĚýofĚýeverydayĚýmedia, in particular the spaces, infrastructures, objects, and affectsĚýthat 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,"ĚýGender, Place & Culture, 2025. Co-authored with Vincent Bos.ĚýDOI:Ěý
"Queer by numbers, or what is happening to popular discourses of LGBTQ+ media representation?"ĚýQueer 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."ĚýTelevision Studies in Queer Times, edited by F. Hollis Griffin, Routledge, 2023, pp. 51-64.
“Productivity and Promiscuity: Paying Undivided Attention” 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
“Frictionless sharing and digital promiscuity”, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (2014). DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2013.873942
“Virality 2.0: Networked promiscuity and the sharing subject”, 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.
“Dancing with the ordinary: masculine celebrity performance on Australian TV”, Continuum 23.3 (2009): 295-306.
“Performing the Ethics of Conversation: a review of Judith Butler in Conversation: Analyzing the Texts and Talk of Everyday Life”, GLQ 15.1 (2009): 177-179.
“Virtual panic: children online and the transmission of harm” in Moral Panics over Contemporary Children and Youth. Ed. Charles Krinsky. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, 31-46.
“Skylarking: homosexual panic and the death of Private Kovco”, Cultural Studies Review 14.2 (2008): 34-48.
â€Âٳٰů8˛ął¦łŮľ±˛Ô˛µâ€ť, Social Semiotics 17.4 (2007): 525-538.
"Grid: On Being-as-Transmission and Normativity." M/C Journal 9.1 (2006).
“Digital memories, analogues of affect”, SCAN: Journal of media arts culture 1.3 (2004).
“Virtually: the refreshment of interface value”, Postmodern Culture 14.3 (2004).
“Confessing the Violent: Projected Deviance in American Psycho and Talk Show TV”, 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
“Citizenship and queer critique”, special issue of Sexualities 15.3-4 (2012), co-edited with Cristyn Davies.
“Panic”, special issue of Cultural Studies Review 14.2 (2008), co- edited with Cristyn Davies
Research Areas
* Digital mediaĚý
* Social media and network cultureĚý
* Gender studies and queer theoryĚý
* Gender andĚýsexuality inĚýmedia and popular culture
*Affect theory
*Materiality and media