Cameron Brown

You Got Me Feeling Emotions: Queer Emotional Labor and Audiences of Reality

Cameron Lynn Brown (he/him/his) is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Communication Studies with a certificate in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies. As a media studies scholar, his research focuses on the relationship between fans/audiences, queerness, and emotional labor. Specifically, his research examines the way audiences understand the relationship between queerness and queer labor practices—like emotional labor—within the context of reality television and social media. Cameron contributes to scholarly conversations on queer and feminist media and popular culture, bearing witness to those interventions made by queer scholars, feminist scholars, and scholars of color that inform his own research. Currently, Cameron is working on his dissertation which aims to expand the definition of reality television to include other forms of media production like short-form social media content to further explore the relationship between media production, industries, and reception. This project seeks to interrogate how queer emotional labor holds cultural capital for queer people and to explore the variety of ways they are called on to perform it. In his spare time, Cameron loves spending time with his friends, cooking and baking, camping, and playing with his dog, Prince Caspian. 

Cameron Brown
Program
Communication Studies