Fandom Survey; a cautionary post
There is a link to survey going around which is purporting to be about connecting fanfiction and neuroscience. DO NOT TAKE IT.
The first post I saw connecting to the survey was published by the mods of crack_van which, besides containing a somewhat obnoxious banner and bad coding, had this to say about the survey:
Last month the neuroscientists who developed this survey got in touch with me through the comm with the idea of distributing a survey to fandom at large. They wanted to share the final data with fandom and other researchers in a fandom-controlled space, and asked if they could do so here. This research will be groundbreaking in their field, and in all of our many discussions over the past month+ they have been unfailingly respectful of fandom's traditions and concerns, and so I was happy to agree.
Thinking it was probably going to end up the same way all forays outsiders make into fandom do, but hope springing eternal, I followed the link and started taking the survey. That is an action I regretted as soon as I got past the first two questions.
The wording of the survey questions made evident underlying assumptions which were not only increasingly misinformed, but biased, exclusionary, and offensive to me as both a member of fandom, a woman, and a person who is non-heterosexual. Throughout the survey the people who wrote the questions consistently showed a basic lack of understanding or attempt at understanding the multi-layered culture of fandom as well as basic misunderstandings about the organization and dynamics of fanfiction. On top of this, the questions amply displayed their bias towards gender, sexual identity, sexual behavior and practices, gender roles, and homosexuality. The language used throughout the survey is problematic and potentially triggering, with heterosexist language, exclusions of gender, sex and sexual orientation, assumptions of male/female gender roles, a complete and reoccurring misunderstanding of the definition of slash and implications that kink, BDSM, and sexual power dynamics are assumed to be in some way derogatory or 'other'.
(Which is probably just the tip of the iceberg because I stopped answering them about the time they asked what fictional character I'd consider my ideal mate. Seriously.)
Finding the survey to be so offensive and utterly (almost willfully) negligent in basic understanding about fandom, I went over to meta_fandom to see if they'd linked to anything about it. There I found a post by jonquil exposing the poor practices these neuroscientists were using while conducting their survey and that it is all for a book they're writing. That's due out in 2010. They also linked to a post by eruthros about being contacted with a request for kink_bingo's inclusion in the survey, why they turned it down, and a copy of the correspondence.
eruthros also included a link to the Q & A page for the survey which contains a number of people pointing out issues with the survey, both in content and wording. Within the Q & A post they have made it clear they have no intention of engaging fandom culture but merely wish to focus on the dynamics of the production and consumption of adult fanfiction without understanding it within the context of fandom as a whole. They also repeatedly refer to the 'fandom community', which implies to me that they fail to grasp the shear size and diversity of fandom. Adding to that the selection of comms they have chosen to approach and they are going to end up with a biased survey not simply due to their questions but because of where they are getting their samples from, namely slash focused Western-media fandoms on livejournal and dreamwidth. This sample fails to include the literal millions in non-media and/or non-Western fandoms and those who use archives such as FFN, personal sites, and listservs.
I would urge all of you to read up on this. If you haven't taken the survey DON'T. If you have, I recommend you install this script in greasemonkey which allows you to deselect radio buttons and go back to the survey and erase your answers.
These people are NOT ethical researchers, they are not conducting this survey in an approved and scientific method, their stated agenda is basically to reinforce traditional gender roles by claiming they are hard wired in our brains, and they WILL use whatever you give them to support what, I can only assume given the release date of their book, are pre-determined ideas and theories about women, gender, online culture, fandom, and sexuality.
The first post I saw connecting to the survey was published by the mods of crack_van which, besides containing a somewhat obnoxious banner and bad coding, had this to say about the survey:
Last month the neuroscientists who developed this survey got in touch with me through the comm with the idea of distributing a survey to fandom at large. They wanted to share the final data with fandom and other researchers in a fandom-controlled space, and asked if they could do so here. This research will be groundbreaking in their field, and in all of our many discussions over the past month+ they have been unfailingly respectful of fandom's traditions and concerns, and so I was happy to agree.
Thinking it was probably going to end up the same way all forays outsiders make into fandom do, but hope springing eternal, I followed the link and started taking the survey. That is an action I regretted as soon as I got past the first two questions.
The wording of the survey questions made evident underlying assumptions which were not only increasingly misinformed, but biased, exclusionary, and offensive to me as both a member of fandom, a woman, and a person who is non-heterosexual. Throughout the survey the people who wrote the questions consistently showed a basic lack of understanding or attempt at understanding the multi-layered culture of fandom as well as basic misunderstandings about the organization and dynamics of fanfiction. On top of this, the questions amply displayed their bias towards gender, sexual identity, sexual behavior and practices, gender roles, and homosexuality. The language used throughout the survey is problematic and potentially triggering, with heterosexist language, exclusions of gender, sex and sexual orientation, assumptions of male/female gender roles, a complete and reoccurring misunderstanding of the definition of slash and implications that kink, BDSM, and sexual power dynamics are assumed to be in some way derogatory or 'other'.
(Which is probably just the tip of the iceberg because I stopped answering them about the time they asked what fictional character I'd consider my ideal mate. Seriously.)
Finding the survey to be so offensive and utterly (almost willfully) negligent in basic understanding about fandom, I went over to meta_fandom to see if they'd linked to anything about it. There I found a post by jonquil exposing the poor practices these neuroscientists were using while conducting their survey and that it is all for a book they're writing. That's due out in 2010. They also linked to a post by eruthros about being contacted with a request for kink_bingo's inclusion in the survey, why they turned it down, and a copy of the correspondence.
eruthros also included a link to the Q & A page for the survey which contains a number of people pointing out issues with the survey, both in content and wording. Within the Q & A post they have made it clear they have no intention of engaging fandom culture but merely wish to focus on the dynamics of the production and consumption of adult fanfiction without understanding it within the context of fandom as a whole. They also repeatedly refer to the 'fandom community', which implies to me that they fail to grasp the shear size and diversity of fandom. Adding to that the selection of comms they have chosen to approach and they are going to end up with a biased survey not simply due to their questions but because of where they are getting their samples from, namely slash focused Western-media fandoms on livejournal and dreamwidth. This sample fails to include the literal millions in non-media and/or non-Western fandoms and those who use archives such as FFN, personal sites, and listservs.
I would urge all of you to read up on this. If you haven't taken the survey DON'T. If you have, I recommend you install this script in greasemonkey which allows you to deselect radio buttons and go back to the survey and erase your answers.
These people are NOT ethical researchers, they are not conducting this survey in an approved and scientific method, their stated agenda is basically to reinforce traditional gender roles by claiming they are hard wired in our brains, and they WILL use whatever you give them to support what, I can only assume given the release date of their book, are pre-determined ideas and theories about women, gender, online culture, fandom, and sexuality.