Susanna Paasonen
Professor of Media Studies
suspaa@utu.fi +358 29 450 3429 +358 50 328 9613 Arcanuminkuja 1 Turku ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6319-9155 |
Areas of expertise
internet research, critical sexuality studies, affect inquiry, media theory, popular culture
internet research, critical sexuality studies, affect inquiry, media theory, popular culture
Biography
I'm professor of Media Studies. After finishing my PhD in 2002 I worked at universities of Tampere, Helsinki and Jyväskylä before starting in my current post in 2011. I've also been visiting scholar/profesor at MIT and Microsoft Research New England's Social Media Collective (2016), University of Florence (2020), and University of Sydney (2022).
Research
I'm specialised in media theory, internet research, affect inquiry, and critical sexuality studies, yet broadly interested in media culture. My recent book projects range from social media inquiry to cinema history in e.g., Who's Laughing Now? Feminist Tactics in Social Media (with Jenny Sundén, MIT Press 2020), Objectification: On the Difference Between Sex and Sexism (with Feona Attwood, Alan McKee, John Mercer and Clarissa Smith, Routledge 2020), Distracted, Frustrated, Bored: Affective Formations in Networked Media (MITP 2021), Technopharmacology (with Joshua Neves, Aleena Chia and Ravi Sundaram, University of Minnesota Press 2022), Yul Brynner: Exoticism, Cosmopolitanism and Screen Masculinity (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), and Hot Connections: Why Sexual Platforms Matter (with Sundén and Katrin Tiidenberg, MITP 2026).
I serve on the editorial boards member of the journals New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, Sexualities, Porn Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Dialogues on Digital Society, Postmodern Culture, Capacious, Postmodern Culture, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, Kvinder, kön och forskning, MedieKultur and Monstrum.
Teaching
I have taught courses on media studies, cultural studies, digital culture and gender studies since 1998. I'm in charge of Media Studies' postgraduate studies, participate in MA supervision, and teach also at BA level.
Publications
- Bad education? Childhood recollections of pornography, sexual exploration, learning and agency in Finland (2017)
- Childhood
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Heartfelt, Singular, Generic, Googled (2017)
- Estonian Art
(D1 Article in a professional journal) - Kirja-arvio: Tissejä, taidetta ja sosiaalidemokratiaa. Elisabet Björklund ja Mariah Larsson (toim.) (2016): Swedish
Cinema and the Sexual Revolution: Critical Essays. Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN: 978-1-47-666544-3. (2017)- Lähikuva
(B1 Non-refereed article in a scientific journal) - Smutty Swedes: Sex films, pornography and the figure of good sex (2017) Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversion Paasonen Susanna
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - The Affective and Affectless Bodies of Monster Toon Porn (2017) Sex in the Digital Age Paasonen Susanna
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - The Collective Body of Colby Keller (2017)
- Phile: The International Journal of Desire and Curiosity
(E1 Popularised article) - Time to celebrate the most disgusting video online (2017)
- Porn Studies
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Fickle focus: Distraction, affect and the production of value in social media (2016)
- First Monday
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Glimmers of the forbidden fruit – Reminiscing pornography, conceptualizing the archive (2016)
- International Journal of Cultural Studies
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Pornification and the Mainstreaming of Sex (2016) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology Paasonen Susanna
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book)



