Jessica Balanzategui

Jessica Balanzategui is a Senior Lecturer in Media in the School of Media and Communication. She is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Industry Fellow (2025-27), and Founding/Chief Editor of Amsterdam University Press's book series, Horror and Gothic Media Cultures.

Jessica's research on the interface between technological and industrial transformation and entertainment cultures has been widely published in the leading international journals in her field, including New Media and Society, Convergence, The Journal of Visual Culture, Television and New Media, Celebrity Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and The Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.

A particular focus of Jessica's research is screen genres for and about children - particularly those that trouble expectations and definitions of "child appropriateness" - and challenging or controversial genres like horror, crime, and the Gothic. As part of these areas of specialty, her research illuminates how genre, storytelling, and aesthetics operate in digital cultures, such as video sharing platforms like YouTube and TikTok, subscription video on demand services like Netflix and other streaming video services, and online scary storytelling cultures. In tandem, Jessica researches the impacts of technological, industrial, and cultural change on screen genres and their audiences, including child audiences.

Her research has contributed to Parliamentary Inquiries and other policy consultations, and the industry strategies of national arts, culture and media organisations. She often curates and leads public events in partnership with organisations like the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Her ARC Fellowship project, "Enhancing Discoverability of Australian Children's TV in the Streaming Era", will produce new understandings of how children and young people use streaming video platforms to access entertainment content. The research is desinged to inform new industry, policy and cultural solutions to improve young people's access to quality, local and age-appropriate screen content in the streaming era. The work is conducted in partnership with the Australian Children's Television Foundation and the Australian Centre of the Moving Image.

Jessica is the author or co-editor of 5 books, including Netflix, Dark Fantastic Genres and Intergenerational Viewing: Family Watch Together TV (with Baker and Sandars, Routledge 2023), Monstrous Beings and Media Cultures: Folk Monsters, Im/materiality and Regionality (with Craven, Amsterdam UP, 2023), and The Uncanny Child in Transnational Cinema: Ghosts of Futurity at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century (Amsterdam University Press, 2018), which is freely available online via OAPEN after being selected for open-access publication by the "Knowledge Unlatched Select" scheme.

Jessica's other grant-supported interdisciplinary projects include:

- a partnership with the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art that staged an experimental multi-site public program to cultivate new public understandings of and experiences with the horror genre

- a project on the futures of cinema exhibition with Village Roadshow that considered the rise of the immersive entertainment experience and entertainment destination

- an examination of how digital technologies are reshaping how children play combining perspectives from media and children's development studies.

Jessica welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in cinema and screen, digital cultures, and childhood studies.

Industry Experience:

Lead Organiser/Chief Investigator with ACCA - "Screams on Screen" multi-site public programs (2024) 
Chief Investigator - Australian Children's Television Cultures (funded by ACTF, 2021-24)
Chief Investigator - Scene Hunter and Film Language, New Technology (funded by Village Roadshow)
Regular popular culture critic and film/TV reviewer - ABC
Lead Organiser - Mapping Global Horror: Australia, Japan & beyond, ACMI 

Some of Jessica's research awards include:

The Australian Film Institute Research Collection Fellowship, 2020 

Outstanding Researcher (Early Career), Swinburne University of Technology, 2019

Dean's Award for Emerging Researcher, Swinburne University of Technology, 2018

OAPEN/Knowledge Unlatched Select Open Access Publication Award for The Uncanny Child in Transnational Cinema, 2018

Jessica is an experienced teacher across Cinema and Media studies, and has received the following teaching awards in recognition of her innovative pedagogical approaches and contributions to curriculum:

Australian Awards for University Teaching Excellence Citation, Australian Awards for University Teaching (2021)

Adobe Teaching Innovation Grant, "Making Media that Thinks", RMIT University (2023)

Adobe Teaching Innovation Grant: Learning By Doing,Digital Paratexts, Swinburne Univeristy of Technology (2022)

Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence, Swinburne University of Technology (2021)

Faculty of Health, Arts, and Design Teaching Excellence Award, Swinburne University of Technology (2020)