Document Type

Paper

Publication Date

5-2020

Subjects

Science fiction, Fantasy fiction, Publishers and publishing, Multiculturalism in literature

Abstract

Science fiction and fantasy is one of the most abundant genres today, projected to gross $590.2 million in the adult fiction market in the year 2020. However, despite its growing popularity and its large reader base, it still predominantly caters to white men; something that could be detrimental to the industry. This paper aimed to show how science fiction and fantasy (SFF) publishers can learn more about their non-white reader demographic and how they can potentially increase their interaction with their diverse audiences. I conducted a study of social media interaction by compiling Twitter posts over the course of four months and sorted them into two categories. The first being General SFF Spaces where my focus was on identifying diverse readers by looking through each post’s likes, comments, and retweets. The second was Diverse SFF Spaces where I analyzed the content of these accounts to see what it was that diverse SFF readers were interacting with. The results showed that on Twitter alone there is a moderate to high level of ethnically and racially diverse reader interaction and that a large portion of it revolved around diverse SFF content. These results support the idea that the science fiction and fantasy reader demographics are not as homogeneous as it is often assumed to be and that there is an oversight on the publishers’ side when it comes to connecting and catering to these individuals in the community. Thus, further demographic research is essential if we are ever to see a shift toward a more inclusive SFF community and industry.

Rights

© 2020 the author

IN COPYRIGHT:
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DISCLAIMER:
The purpose of this statement is to help the public understand how this Item may be used. When there is a (non-standard) License or contract that governs re-use of the associated Item, this statement only summarizes the effects of some of its terms. It is not a License, and should not be used to license your Work. To license your own Work, use a License offered at https://creativecommons.org/

Description

Paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Writing: Book Publishing.

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/33243

Download

Share

COinS