Research Title: It’s the End of the World and They Know It: How Dystopian Fiction Shapes Political Attitudes

Research Authors: Calvert W. Jones & Celia Paris

Research Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Perspectives on Politics

Research Publication date: November 2018

How does fiction shape politics and what can we learn from analyzing its impact on public attitudes?

As the Alliance for Peacebuilding concluded our 10th Annual PeaceCon in January 2022 with closing keynote speaker Kim Stanley Robinson, international bestselling science fiction writer, we see a startling correlation between fiction and public opinion. But what does research say with regards to how dystopian fiction impacts public attitudes?

In this article, the researchers conduct focus group discussions and three experiments to better understand generalizable effects of dystopian fiction on political attitudes. Across all three experiments they found evidence that exposure to dystopian media made people more willing

to justify radical—and particularly violent—forms of action against injustice by political elites. The stories we tell and consume can have huge implications on how we think and act.

The authors define totalitarian-dystopian fiction as “any fictional work that portrays a dark and disturbing world dominated by an overwhelmingly powerful government or other controlling entity that acts to undermine core values such as freedom and justice.” Anyone thinking of The Walking Dead, Station Eleven, Don’t Look Up, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hunger Games, or any number of modern dystopian fiction dominating global entertainment? This genre of fiction is particularly relevant when considering political attitudes because they inherently encompass plots where governments exert some form of excessive power and citizens rise up in rebellion against said government.

But why fiction – something obviously made up - and why narratives? Current consumption of fiction and entertainment in any form dwarfs that of nonfiction and news media – a major trend only heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Research suggests that people do not necessarily distinguish between ‘facts’ they learn from fiction and non-fiction sources[1] – also greatly exacerbated through the startling rise of mis and dis-information and the rapid dominance of social media. Narratives are also fundamental to human cognition and persuasion. Research has shown that people tend to not only remember more from narrative information[2], but they also tend to be more persuaded by it[3] because they cognitively and emotionally connect to the information. They can also be more moved to political action by narrative information[4].

The researchers applied a genre-based approach to develop and test 4 hypotheses grounded in narrative persuasion, agenda-setting, and folk theories evidence:

-        H1: Exposure to totalitarian-dystopian fiction will increase the perceived legitimacy of radical, and particularly violent, responses to unjust governments

-        H2: Exposure to totalitarian-dystopian fiction will increase the extent to which subjects are concerned about the issues central to many totalitarian-dystopian narratives—excessive government power and individual freedom

-        H3: Exposure to totalitarian-dystopian fiction will cause subjects to become less politically trusting and less inclined to engage politically

-        H4: exposure to totalitarian-dystopian fiction with female protagonists will increase support for women in leadership and combat roles

Their experimental approach included conducting focus groups with high-school and college age youth and leading three iterative studies that allowed for replication of effects and the exploration of competing hypotheses. Across all three experiments they included: no-media control groups and two comparison media packages to assess the genres effects relative to other types of media exposure.

Subjects were asked two questions adapted from the World Values Survey (WVS) to assess H1 “To what extent do you think the following actions are justified, if a government is perceived as unjust?” Responses were rated on a 100-point scale from Never to Always justifiable across five increasingly radical illegal actions: civil disobedience, damaging government property, cyberattacks on government websites, violent protest, and armed rebellion. Subjects were also asked to rate their agreement with “Under some conditions, violence is necessary to obtain justice.” The researchers conducted three studies with comparison media packages to assess H1, testing and separating effects related to 1) any violence (in dystopian fiction or elsewhere) being responsible for increased aggression and support for violent acts and 2) any vivid portrayal of mass collective resistance on the part of citizens (in dystopian fiction or elsewhere in the media) through the inclusion of a nonfiction and news-based treatment.

To assess H2, subjects were asked how concerned they were about eight different political issues, including two particularly relevant to totalitarian-dystopian fiction: excessive government power and individual freedom. To assess H3 and H4, subjects provide perceptions and attitudinal scores relevant to different indices related to trust in politicians, women in leadership and combat roles, and feminism. 

Findings from the three separate studies with pooled results demonstrated that there is compelling support that exposure to totalitarian dystopian fiction increases the perceived legitimacy of radical, and particularly violent, responses to unjust governments (H1). The researchers found statistically significant results related to measures for support of damaging action, violent action, and perceptions of violence as necessary. However, there was no indication that exposure to totalitarian dystopian fiction affects attitudes toward nonviolent resistance through civil disobedience.

Findings from the three separate studies also showed some support for H2, but there were mixed results. The researchers found no support that exposure to totalitarian dystopian fictions reduces subjects’ trust in politicians or intent to participate in politics (H3). The researchers also found little evidence for effects on attitudes related to gender equality (H4).

Of particular interest to peacebuilding, the researchers also asked subjects in the third study that included a nonfiction and news-based treatment to assess how effective different forms of contestation are towards addressing injustice. Subjects were asked “How effective do you think each of the following actions are, as a way of responding to injustice?” for each of the corresponding actions

1)     conventional actions: signing a petition, writing a letter, posting a comment on social media, voting for a particular candidate, donating to a particular candidate, donating to an activist group, and participating in a nonviolent protest or march;

2)     damaging actions: engaging in cyber-attacks against those responsible and destroying the property of those responsible; and

3)     violent actions: participating in a violent protest and participating in an armed rebellion.

The researchers found that exposure to totalitarian dystopian fiction led the most attentive subjects to see conventional (nonviolent) action as significantly less effective, and violent political action as significantly more effective, compared to those in the control group.

 Findings from the research suggest that fiction has greater potential for action by readers than non-fiction. The researchers go so far as to posit that non-fiction may be less powerful and mobilizing and could even be deactivating compared to fiction.

“Whether or not regular news media generally shape beliefs about political effectiveness, the contrast with dystopian fiction is notable, as we find more evidence for people drawing “political life lessons” from a narrative about an imaginary political world than from fact-based reporting about the real world.”

What are the implications of these findings long-term? How have generations of readers who have been exposed for years to totalitarian dystopian fiction differ from upcoming generations who are reading and at times feeling as if they are living in a totalitarian dystopian world? Arguably, the findings of this study should be considered within context, yet they could have real-world consequences. The researchers provide compelling suggestions situating these findings within real-world radicalism and political violence.

Understanding what distinguishes between fact and fiction for the average individual and the role fiction can play in shaping perceptions and attitudes towards violence should not be demoted to a second order issue or only affecting a small population. With the onslaught of unregulated social media and information sharing sites like Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more people have access to more fact and fiction than ever before. How they internalize that information and use it to justify their attitudes and actions has huge potential – positively and negatively.

We can leverage these findings to support more effective narrative work. AfP, in partnership with The FrameWorks Institute, PartnersGlobal, and Humanity United, recently released findings from a multi-year, multi-disciplinary research endeavor that delivers evidence-based recommendations for more effective narrative strategies to build public understanding and support for peacebuilding. By identifying and deploying common framing strategies that support a deeper cultural shift towards peacebuilding as the instrument of first resort, this research is a game-changer for the peacebuilding field.

 However, the researchers issue a concluding warning - it is to everyone’s peril to consider fiction just entertainment because the “stories we tell ourselves have profound implications for how we think about political ethics and political possibilities”.

AfP Blog Author: Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Deputy Executive Director – Research & Learning

Additional research links

[1] See such research as Mulligan and Habel (2011) “An Experimental Test of the Effects of Fictional Framing on Attitudes”; Abraham, Cramon, and Schubotz (2008) “Meeting George Bush versus Meeting Cinderella: The Neural Response When Telling Apart What Is Real from What Is Fictional in the Context of Our Reality.”; and Gerrig, and Prentice (1991) “The Representation of Fictional Information.” and Meade and Roediger (2003) “Learning Facts from Fiction.”.

[2] See Berinsky and Kinder (2006) “Making Sense of Issues through Media Frames: Understanding the Kosovo Crisis.”

[3] See Braddock and Dillard (2016) “Meta-Analytic Evidence for the Persuasive Effect of Narratives on Beliefs, Attitudes, Intentions, and Behaviors.” And Pennington and Hastie (1992) “Explaining the Evidence: Tests of the Story Model for Juror Decision Making.”

[4] See Mayer (2014) Narrative Politics.