Associate Professor
Mark Ryan

Biography

Dr. Mark Ryan, publishing as Mark David Ryan, is an Associate Professor in film and screen and a Chief Investigator for the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC). He is an expert in screen industries research, Australian genre cinema,  genre film studies, and digital media. He was the President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAAZ) between 2015 and 2018 and an Executive Member of Australian Screen Producers Education and Research Association (ASPERA) in 2015/2016.

He is a Chief Investigator of various funded research projects:

• Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (LP180100626)(2019-2023)
• Australian Cultural & Creative Activity: A Population & Hotspot Analysis (LP160101724)(2017-2020)
• 2018 Innovation Connections Grant
• 2018 QUT, Institute of Future Environments (IFE) Catapult Project

Mark was also received the 2018 AFI Research Fellowship, at the AFI Research Collection, Australian Film Institute and RMIT University.

Mark has edited several collections on Australian screen that are widely adopted as required readings in undergraduate screen studies courses in Australia. He and Kelly McWilliam edited Australian Genre Film (2021, Routledge), he is the lead editor of Australian Screen in the 2000s (2017, Palgrave Macmillan), and is a co-editor of Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 (2015, Intellect).

Mark is a chief investigator - with Sue Turnbull, Stuart Cunningham, Steinar Ellingsen, Nicola Evans, and Emilia Zboralska - of the 4-year ARC Linkage project titled, Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (2019 -2022). This project investigates the value of web series as a form of online screen entertainment characterised by original and diverse content produced by emerging creatives. It will deploy the theoretical frame of ‘total value’ to assess the role and viability of web series: value accrued as career development opportunities for digital content makers; value accrued by the audiences who consume web series; and the value accrued by the Australian screen industry as web series contribute to innovation in a rapidly evolving global screen ecology. We have partnered with four leading web series festivals who will benefit directly from a hosting a number of forums for the discussion and dissemination of our comparative findings. Further details are available on the project website.

Ryan was the lead researcher of the research project Independent Screen Production on the Gold Coast (2020) commissioned by the Gold Coast City Council to examine the size, capacity and structure of the screen production workforce and screen ecology on the Gold Coast.


His research has been published in leading film and media studies journals, including New Review of Film & Television Studies, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy, Journal of Australian Studies, and Studies in Australasian Cinema. His book chapters appear in collections published by leading international academic publishers including Routledge, Sage, University of Toronto Press, University of Ottawa Press, and Bloomsbury Press. Mark has edited special issues in key film and media journals.

In 2012, he was a chief investigator of the second Australian Screen Producer (ASP) survey, a nation-wide study of the motivations and practices of screen producers in four key industry sectors: film, television, corporate production and digital media. In 2015, Mark co-convened the XVIIth Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (FHAANZ) which brought together researchers from Australia and New Zealand as well as China, Italy, and the US. Mark has supervised five PHD theses and two Master’s theses – both traditional research theses and practice-led research projects - investigating a diverse range of subjects including horror studies, film and television studies, animation studies, and public diplomacy and cultural industries.