The Web Series Experiment

1. Web series are dead: Long live web series. Steinar Ellingsen, Mark David Ryan, and Sue Turnbull 2. Beyond the digital frontier: The journey and evolution of web series in Australia Steinar Ellingsen and Whitney Monaghan 3. How to value a web series: From Bleak to Deadloch Marion McCutcheon and Sue Turnbull 4. Why support web series, anyway? A comparative analysis of web series policy rationales in Canada and Australia Emilia King and Mark David Ryan 5. The distinctive landscape of small-screen production: Reimagining paradigms of creation and reception Otessa Marie Ghadar 6. Women and web series 2012–2019 Nicky Evans, Marion McCutcheon, Joël Bassaget, Emilia King, and Steinar Ellingsen 7. Watching web series: Audiences and engagement Meredith Burkholder 8. The web festival circuit Leandro da Silva and Otesssa Marie Ghadar 9. Revaluing web series: The role of web series in creative careers Nicky Evans, Steinar Ellingsen, and Meredith Burkholder

Biography

Steinar Ellingsen is the coordinator of the Bachelor of Journalism and Broadcast Media at Edith Cowan University. He is a chief investigator on the ARC Linkage project, Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (LP180100626). Dr Ellingsen is an internationally recognised expert on web series whose practice-based PhD thesis included the creation of a multi-award-winning web series, The Inland Sea: An Australian Odyssey. He is a co-founder and former Director of Melbourne WebFest and has given keynotes and seminars on web series around the globe. Dr Ellingsen has previously held positions as Senior Lecturer at the University of Wollongong and La Trobe University, where he also served as Head of Department of Communication and Media from 2016 to 2018.

Mark David Ryan is a Professor in Screen and Media Studies and a Chief Investigator for the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He is the Academic Lead for Research and Research Training for the School of Creative Arts, Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice, QUT. He has written extensively about screen industries, Australian film and television, and genre cinema. Mark David Ryan regularly advises government screen agencies on policy formulation, shaping both international and domestic film and television production. Between 2020 and 2023, he was commissioned by Screen Queensland, the Gold Coast City Council, and the Sunshine Coast Council to lead studies to inform policies supporting the development of the film and television industry. He has published numerous refereed journal articles and scholarly essays and is a co-editor of the books Australian Genre Film (2021), Australian Screen in the 2000s (2017), and the Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand (2015). He was the President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAANZ) between 2015 and 2018.

Sue Turnbull is Honorary Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong. Her publications include Media Audiences (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), Media and Communications in Australia with co-editor Bridget Griffen-Foley (Routledge 2024) and Migrants, Television and Australian Stories (Routledge 2025), co-written with Kate Darian Smith, Sukhmani Khorana, and Kyle Harvey. Sue has been involved in eight Australian Research Council projects and was Chief Investigator on the ARC Linkage project, Valuing Web Series (LP180100626).