Rate My Professor Michael Meany

Dr. Michael Meany serves as Senior Lecturer in Communication within the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia, a position he has held since 1997, initially in the School of Design, Communication and IT. His academic qualifications include a Doctor of Philosophy from Victoria University (2014) with a thesis titled The Performance of Comedy by Artificial Intelligence Agents, a Master of Creative Arts, a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, all from the University of Newcastle. Currently, he is Deputy Head of School (Teaching and Learning) in the School of Creative Industries and Program Convenor for the Bachelor of Arts (Communication Studies), Bachelor of Communication, Bachelor of Communication/Laws, and Master of Digital Media. His professional background encompasses freelance writing, photography, typesetting, publication design, and playwriting, which informed his early role as Lecturer in Professional Writing.

Dr. Meany's research focuses on the integration of creativity theories with those of humour and comedy, the application of systems models of creativity to curriculum development and the creative industries, artificial intelligence in comedy performance, new media production, interactive media, communication technology, and digital media studies. Key publications include co-authored books Entrepreneurship in the Creative Industries: How Innovative Agents, Skills and Networks Interact (2023) and Educating for Creativity within Higher Education: Integration of Research into Media Practice (2018), the journal article "The systemic relationship between creative failure and creative success in the creative industries" (Creative Industries Journal, 2020), and book chapters such as "Comedy, Creativity, Agency: The Hybrid Individual" (2016) and "Systems Centered Learning Approach to Creative Practice in Communication and Media Teaching" (2019). He has presented extensively at conferences on topics including metamodernism, representations of academics in plays, humour in games, and Twitter parody. Dr. Meany is Co-Editor of Humour Digest, the official publication of the Australasian Humour Studies Network, and previously served as Associate Editor and Reviewer for Common Ground journals (Technology and Society; Arts in Society; Literary Humanities) from 2012 to 2014. He co-convened the Nineteenth AHSN Colloquium on ‘Humour and Creativity’ in 2013.