Steven joined the Media and Communications department in 2005 after ten years teaching at the University of Western Sydney. A graduate of Curtin University in Western Australia (1988), he studied Honours at Murdoch University, and received his PhD in Communication Studies from Murdoch University (1994). He has published articles and essays in numerous journals in Australia and internationally, and is on the editorial advisory board of Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies and the Journal of Screenwriting. Steven has strong interests in both teaching and research, and is a firm believer in the possibility of a productive dialogue between scholarly and intellectual work and media practice and industries. He is author of Screenwriting: History, Theory, Practice, Wallflower Press, 2009. He has a special interest in critical media literacies and the relationship of theory and practice; video production; how we understand and theorise communication; and all those aspects of media and communications that makes it such a fascinating area today.

• Philosophy of communications
• Communication and media studies
• Conceptual practice and media production/education
• The theory, history and practice of screen writing
• Critical communications and media practice, pedagogy and media literacy
• Historical research on the emergence of communication studies in Australia.

• ‘In Search of "Screenplay": Terminological Traces in the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries: Cumulative Series, 1912–20’, Film History 21: 4 (2009), pp. 346-358.
• Screenwriting: History, Theory, Practice. London: Wallflower Press, 2009.
• ‘On Transmission: A Metamethodological Analysis (after Regis Debray)’, fibreculture journal 12 (2008). http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue12/issue12_maras.html
• ‘Reading James W. Carey on the University Tradition’, Australian Journal of Communication, 34:3 (2007), pp. 23-37.
• 'Communicating criticality', International Journal of Communication 1:1 (2007 Feb 7). http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4
• ‘The Emergence of Communication Studies in Australia as “Curriculum Idea”’, Australian Journal of Communication, 33:2/3 (2006), pp. 43-62.
• 'Travelling with James W. Carey’, Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture and Policy, 120 (2006): pp. 21-34.
• 'Television, Participation and Social Capital', Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 20:1 (2006), pp. 87-109.
• 'Some Theses on Critical Communications Practice'. Conference Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Annual Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand. July 4-7, 2005. http://www.mang.canterbury.ac.nz/ANZCA/FullPapers/17PR&CommunityCommFINAL.pdf
• 'The Problem of Theory and Practice: Towards a Constitutive Analysis', Journal of Media Practice, 6:2 (2005) pp 93-103.
• 'Reflections on Adobe Corporation, Bill Viola, and Peter Ramus while Printing Lecture Notes.' M/C Journal 8:2 (2005). http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/05-maras.php.

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