Hello, I’m Bradley J. Dixon. I’m a writer, critic, and media scholar working on Wurundjeri country in Melbourne, Australia.
My research focuses on developments in social and new media technologies and their effects on art, culture, and everyday life. I recently completed a PhD at RMIT University with a thesis titled “Performing the Self: Parafictional Persona and the Comedian Comedy,” which examines several historical and contemporary examples of comedians playing themselves across television, film, web series, and social media performance. My publications include scholarly and non-scholarly works covering a range of topics in media and cultural studies.
I teach into the Cinema Studies and Popular Culture streams of RMIT’s Media program. In 2024 I developed and led the RMIT Media Studio Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre, which produced five short films exploring comedy as a mode within (and beyond) genre, form, and media.
I’m also co-director of the screen research event series ‹SCREEN INQUISITION›, a former editor of the film journal Senses of Cinema, and have served on the programming teams for the Melbourne International Film Festival and Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.
Research Interests
- Digital platforms and cultures
- Persona, identity, and the self
- Film and television performance, stardom, and celebrity
- Community and alternative media
- Reality-based media and authenticity
- Fandom and fan cultures
- Media preservation, informal distribution, piracy
- Meta-textuality in media
- Comedy persona and performance
Education
PhD in Media and Communication
RMIT University, 2024
Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours 1st Class)
RMIT University, 2019