Susanna Paasonen
Professor of Media Studies
suspaa@utu.fi +358 29 450 3429 +358 50 328 9613 Arcanuminkuja 1 Turku |
internet research, critical sexuality studies, affect inquiry, media theory, popular culture
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).
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) and Yul Brynner: Exoticism, Cosmopolitanism and Screen Masculinity (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Hot Connections: Why Sexual Platforms Matter, co-authored with Sundén and Katrin Tiidenberg, is forthcoming from MITP in March 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.
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.
- Smutty Swedes: Sex films, pornography and the figure of good sex (2017) Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversion Paasonen Susanna
- The Affective and Affectless Bodies of Monster Toon Porn (2017) Sex in the Digital Age Paasonen Susanna
- The Collective Body of Colby Keller (2017)
- Phile: The International Journal of Desire and Curiosity
- Time to celebrate the most disgusting video online (2017)
- Porn Studies
- Fickle focus: Distraction, affect and the production of value in social media (2016)
- First Monday
- Glimmers of the forbidden fruit – Reminiscing pornography, conceptualizing the archive (2016)
- International Journal of Cultural Studies
- Pornification and the Mainstreaming of Sex (2016) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology Paasonen Susanna
- Visceral pedagogies: Pornography, affect, and safety in the university classroom (2016)
- Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies
- A midsummer’s bonfire – Affective intensities of online debate (2015) Networked Affect Paasonen Susanna
- As Networks Fail – Affect, Technology, and the Notion of the User (2015)
- Television and New Media
- Fleshy Intensities (2015) Writing and Unwriting (Media) Art History: Erkki Kurenniemi in 2048 Paasonen Susanna
- Heavy skies and a cold Soviet feel (2015)
- Journal of Scandinavian Cinema
- Introduction: Networks of Transmission – Intensity, Sensation, Value (2015) Networked Affect Paasonen Susanna, Hillis Ken, Petit Michael
- Navanalaista naurua (2015) Huumorin skaalat: Esitys, tyyli, tarkoitus Paasonen Susanna
- Networked Affect (2015) Hillis Ken, Paasonen Susanna, Petit Michael
- Online Pornography (2015) International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition Paasonen Susanna
- ‘Pervy role-play and such’ – Girls' experiences of sexual messaging online (2015)
- Sex Education
- Pornosta (2015) Paasonen Susanna
- ”Siinä oli hämähäkki väärinpäin” – Tutkimusraportti pornografiaa koskevan muistitiedon keruuhankkeesta (2015) Paasonen Susanna, Kyrölä Katariina, Nikunen Kaarina, Saarenmaa Laura, Välimäki Teo
- We hid porn magazines in the nearby woods – Memory-work and pornography consumption in Finland (2015)
- Sexualities



