Dr Michael Meany

Dr Meany’s background includes work as a freelance writer, photographer, a typesetter and publication designer, and as a playwright. This diverse media background allows him to bring an eclectic mix of skills to his research and teaching. He was initially employed at the University of Newcastle as a lecturer in professional writing partly on the basis of his freelance experience. However, as media technologies changed and converged so too did his teaching role and research interests. Desktop publishing evolved into web-design; film-based photography gave way to digital photography; audio and video on the web became multimedia; and, web coding became interactive interface design. His PhD, The Performance of Comedy by Artificial Intelligence Agents (2014), was an interdisciplinary study that amalgamated scripted artificial intelligence dialogue and computer interface scripting with the theory and practice of comedy and of creativity. His work since that time has continued to integrate the study of creativity with a range of disciplinary perspectives.

●       Contributions to the Field:

Dr Meany’s contribution to the field of creativity research has been in two primary areas. First, the integration of theories of creativity with theories of humour and comedy. These areas share a similar philosophical history. Both disciplines have their roots in classical scholarship calling on the works of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Likewise, both areas were reimaged and found new prominence during the Enlightenment. Later, both areas were scrutinised through the psychological lens by Freud, Jung and others. Dr Meany in his PhD made the distinction between humour and comedy by pointing out that the construction of comedy, unlike the sometimes unintentional aspects of humour, is a systematic, intentional creative activity. Second, Dr Meany has applied the systems model of creativity to curriculum development. Not only has this resulted in direct research outputs it has also guided the development of curriculum in the School of Creative Industries. In his role as the Deputy Head of School (Teaching and Learning) Dr Meany has applied the systems model of creativity to a School wide reinvention of Programs and Courses.

 ●      Industry and community engagement:

Rapid project, an initiative of the School of Creative Industries, aims to engage academics with industry and community groups to invent solutions, through a co-design process, to perceived social and cultural issues. Dr Meany has contributed to the two iterations of the Rapid project.

 ●      Professional involvement – including committees, conference organisation and participation:

In 2013 Dr Meany and Professor Michael Ewans were co-convenors of the Nineteenth Colloquium on ‘Humour and Creativity’ at The University of Newcastle - City Campus, 7-9 February 2013. The Australasian Humour Studies Network’s (AHSN) interdisciplinary conference attracted eminent national and international humour scholars. International scholars came from Poland, Estonia, United Kingdom and the United State of America.

Dr Meany has been for the past three years the Co-Editor the of Humour Digest, the official publication of the AHSN. With Dr Jessica Milner-Davis, former President the International Society for Humour Studies, Dr Meany has produced sixteen editions of the Humour Digest.
Between 2012 and 2014 Dr Meany was an Associate Editor and Reviewer for three journals published by Common Ground. These journals spanned the range of Dr Meany’s research interests including: Technology and Society; Arts in Society; and, Literary Humanities.

 ●      Supervision and mentoring:

Dr Meany currently co-supervising four PhD’s. He has been the primary supervisor on one completion and co-supervisor on four other completions. All of these completions have come from the disciplines of Communication and Media Arts. However, they have covered a range of topics including journalism, music production and cinema. The link between these projects has been the application of practice-based research methodologies and the examination of the social, cultural and psychological facets of creative activity.

 ●       Peer review involvement:

In 2017, Dr Meany examined a Creative Project and Exegesis Higher Research Degrees for an Australian University. He has been the external examiner for two Honours projects from Australian Universities and has been an Honours examiner for eight University of Newcastle projects. 

 ●      Other:

Dr Meany has used production skills to create three CD cover designs for album and EP releases. As a photographer he has been called on to cover numerous Faculty and University events.

 ●       Teaching
Dr Meany's courses employ a collaborative learning approach where students and staff are expected to share their knowledge, skills and abilities. To further this teaching and learning strategy, students are allowed to resubmit assessment events where they feel they can demonstrate enhanced learning outcomes from assessment feedback. This strategy seeks to deal with the following issues:

1. Students undertaking technology-based courses, and on-line courses, tend to have 'penny-drop' moments of understanding that may not occur in time for an assessment event.
2. Students may not fully understand the assessment criteria until they see the quality of work produced by others in the class or until they receive specific feedback on their work.
3. These courses require students to develop their visual, written and oral communication skills and to be not only competent but also literate across a range of media forms.
4. The 'one attempt only' approach to assessment discourages students from taking creative leaps and academic risks.

This strategy is intended to allow students to fully engage with the course material and to develop for themselves the best learning outcomes. The course resubmission policy only applies to selected formative assessment events with comparatively low marks value (less than 20%). There is no penalty for resubmitting an assignment. It is not, however, intended for students wishing to engage in a petty 'marks chase'. Assessment descriptions, criteria and fully developed marking guides are supplied for each assignment on the Blackboard site. For these formative assessment tasks, the marking guides are quite prescriptive - the student must undertake the required skills development in accordance with the outcomes made explicit in the course outline. Students resubmitting an assignment need to take into account the assessment criteria as well as the specific feedback provided by their lecturer. This strategy also encourages rigorous assessment and grading. In other words, resubmission does not create a soft option. Students are completely responsible for their results; they cannot blame the course or the lecturer for their results. The only way to do well in the course is to behave professionally, stay engaged, learn from feedback, and develop critical self-reflection skills. Students are told that it is possible to do worse on an assessment event after resubmission. Where a student has thoughtlessly created new errors in their work in a poor attempt at 'fixing' the original submission, their grade can be reduced. This again reminds students that they are responsible for their grade and for the approach they take to their studies. The application of these strategies leads to a high level of student satisfaction, evidenced through formal survey results and informal communication.

Administrative Expertise
Dr Meany's career has been punctuated with periods of where hehas undertaken duties usually reserved for more senior academics. For example, as a Level A academic, he undertook my first term as a Program Convenor (Program Coordinator as it was known then) for the Bachelor of Arts (Communication Studies). Since being promoted to Level B he has undertaken the Program Convenor role on several occasions for the Bachelor of Communication and the combined Bachelor of Communication/Laws, as well as, the Master of Digital Media. Mostly recently, his service to the School has been as Deputy Head of School.

Collaborations
My primary research interests revolve around the combined domains of humour studies and creativity research. I collaborate with with colleagues from various organisations including: Australasian Humour Studies Network; International Society for Humor Studies; and, Australia and New Zealand Communication Association.