Associate Professor
Mark Ryan

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Film, Screen & Animation
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 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.
Personal details
Positions
- Associate Professor
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Film, Screen & Animation
Discipline
Film, Television and Digital Media, Communication and Media Studies
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- Ph.D (Queensland University of Technology)
- Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice (Queensland University of Technology)
- BA Hons (First Class) (Mass Communication) (University of Southern Qld)
- BA (Mass Communication) (University of Southern Qld)
Professional memberships and associations
- Chief Investigator, Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), QUT, 2015-present
- Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), UK
- President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAANZ), from 2015 - 2018. http://ssaaanz.org/
- Executive Member of Australian Screen Producers Education and Research Association (ASPERA), July 2015 -July 2016. http://aspera.org.au/
- Executive Member of Creative Lab, Creative Industries Faculty, QUT
- Member of Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2012-2016. http://www.cmstudies.org/
- Member of Australian Film Critics Association of Australia (AFCA), 2017 -present. http://www.afca.org.au/
Teaching
Since 2008, I have coordinated or taught in the following undergraduate and postgraduate courses in creative industries, screen studies and media studies:
- Screen Business (KPB121)
- Screen Issues (KPB325)
- Australian Film and Television (KPB212)
- TV and Film Text Analysis (KPB113)
- Global Screen Industries (KPB206)
- International Cinema (KPB206)
- Creative Industries: People and Practices (KKB101)
- Introduction to Entertainment (KXB101)
- Project Design in Creative Industries (KKP003)
- Media and Communication Industries (KCB104)
Selected publications
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Mark, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Awards
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAANZ) from November 2015 until November 2018.
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- Executive Member of Australian Screen Producers Education and Research Association (ASPERA), the national body for practical screen education and research, and served in this role between July 2015 and July 2016.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2016
- Details
- Vice-Chancellor's Performance Award 2015. In recognition of a significant and superior contribution to the work of a university.
- Type
- Committee Role/Editor or Chair of an Academic Conference
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- Convener the XVIIth Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (FHAANZ) Conference held at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 1 to 3 July, 2015.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- I received the Star Supervisor Award for outstanding Higher Degree Research Supervision. Awarded by the Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, 7 August 2015.
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (team), 8 July 2010
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2010
- Details
- Dean's Award for Excellence in Research and Innovation, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology (July 2010)
Research projects
- Title
- Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP180100626
- Start year
- 2020
- Keywords
- online; creatives; screen; digital content makers; web series festivals
- Title
- Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP160101724
- Start year
- 2017
- Keywords
- Title
- Production Cultures in Transition: Examining the 21st Century Australian Screen Producer
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- SR0590002
- Start year
- 2011
- Keywords
- Film And Television; Film Production; Interactive Media; Internet Broadcasting; Transmedia
Supervision
Current supervisions
- Extreme Sports as Filmed Entertainment: Understanding Aesthetic Form, Style and Characteristics of Extreme Sports Films
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Christy Collis - Private Television Channels in Bangladesh: A Political-Economy Analysis of the Role of the State and How This Impacts News Media
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Kevin Sanson
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- The Moral Undead: Representations of the soul in contemporary vampire film and television (2017)
- Animated Mise-en-scène and Aesthetic Harmony: An Expansion of the Traditional Principles of Animation to 3D Computer Animation (2016)
- (Un)Dead Japan: A Genre Analysis of the Japanese Zombie Film (2015)
- Creative Interoperability: A new concept to guide, understand and evaluate innovation by cross-sector collaboration (2015)
- Television Content for the 21st Century Classroom (2015)
- Confucius Institutes and the Rise of China - How the People's Republic of China uses its cultural institutions abroad to communicate with the world (2013)
Completed supervisions (Masters by Research)
- ABC Television Sport: Public Broadcasting, Innovation and Nation Building (2017)
- A documentary and exegesis seeking to find out why rollercoasters mean so much to those who love them (2016)
- Crowdfunding and Independent Screen Content Production in Australia: A Direct Economic Relationship between Producer and Audience (2015)
- Made By Motion: a Conceptual Framework for Abstracted Animation Derived from Motion-Captured Movements (2015)