RAPHAEL ROSALEN is a Brazilian film and digital media scholar, editor, curator, and programmer. He is a fellow of the USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study and a recipient of the USC Discovery Scholar Prize (top 10 university-wide for original research).

He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Southern California (USC). His professional experience includes work at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he contributed to inclusive film research initiatives, as well as roles at the Museum of Modern Art’s film department and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Raphael also programs films for public audiences. In September 2026, he programmed and hosted a sold-out 30th anniversary screening of The Birdcage at Los Feliz 3 with the American Cinematheque and One Institute, featuring a video message from Nathan Lane and a Q&A with art director Thomas Duffield. He serves on the steering committee for One Institute’s Circa: Queer Histories Festival.

From 2022 to 2026, Raphael was Managing Editor of JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, where he oversaw production of 17 issues. See the list of issues below.

His scholarly work focuses on YouTubers and other digital media celebrities, with particular attention to affect, authenticity, and the performance of intimacy online. He is completing a PhD in film and media studies at UC Irvine (defending fall 2026), where his dissertation, The Vlog and the Star: YouTube Authenticity and the Transformation of Celebrity, historicizes the YouTube daily vlog as a visual movement and traces how its performance of ordinariness reshaped celebrity, from early creators to today’s mainstream stars.

Since January 2025, Raphael has also written a monthly column on film, visual culture, AI, and digital identity for O Democrata, a Brazilian news publication with international readership. Selected English translations are posted on the essays page.

As a multimedia artist and producer, he founded Seventh Press, an independent imprint dedicated to publishing and supporting narrative-driven work across print and digital platforms. His debut book, Monte Casanova, was published in the fall of 2025. It anchors a larger multimedia project that also includes a fictional podcast, a serialized TikTok series, and his debut album of the same name.