An Investigation of the Relationship Between Sci-Fi Imaginations and Academic Endeavors on Digital Technologies: Taking Chinese Sci Fi and Scholarly Computer Science Publications As An Example by Lizao Wang An Undergraduate Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Media Arts and Sciences Wellesley College 2020 May 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Purpose of the Project…………………………..….....……...........................................3 2. Chapter 1: Data Processing………………………………………………………………..........….6 2.1 Selection of Data Source…………………………………………………………...............6 2.2 Data Coding Procedure …………………........……..........................................10 2.2.1 CS Subcategory Codes…………………………………………………............10 2.2.2 General Codes Specifically For Sci-Fi……………………………..….......12 2.2.3 Coding Procedure…………………………...........................................15 3. Chapter 2: Understanding Results…………………..……………………………………………18 3.1 Revisiting the Hypothesis………………………………………....…………………………18 3.2 Possible Bias Introduced By the Data Collection Method…………………….27 3.3 Possible Bias Caused by Social Context ………………………………..…............32 3.4 Additional Results………………………………………..........................................36 4. Chapter 3: Data Representations……………………………..…………………......……......41 4.1 Intentions and Guidelines………………………….…………………………..…...........41 4.2 Design Process………………………………..…………………………………..………........43 4.3 Design Testing and Evaluations………………………….…………….………….........48 5. Final Note…………………………………………………...……...........................................52 6. Appendix A: List of Links to digital components of this thesis.........................54 7. Appendix B: List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………55 8. Appendix C: Citations…………………………………………………………………………………..56 2 1. PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT The Assumption that imaginations in Science Fiction novels have impacts on actual digital technology developments has been going around for a while. One of the many who made the assumption popular is the inventor of cell phones, Martin Cooper, openly acknowledging that his inspiration comes from the handheld communicators in Star Trek(Blazeski, 2017). Is there really a relationship between Sci-fi imaginations and digital technology developments? Ed Finn from Arizona State University believes that Sci-Fi is a “laboratory to experiment intellectually”, where people test out their envisioned technical and social changes(Eschrich, 2015). Brian David Johnson, Ed’s colleague from the Center for Science and the Imagination also has extensive work on the theory of ‘Science Fiction Prototyping’, which points to science fictions as test grounds for future or happening technology innovations(Johnson, 2011). On top of theorizations, some concrete answers have also been provided by scholars. Philipp Jordan from University of Hawaii conducted a data analysis where he counts how many times Science Fictions are mentioned in ACM-SIGCHI across 3 years so as to show the change of possible influence that sci-fi has on HCI research. Results of Jordan’s study shows that the mentioning of science fiction in HCI works is increasing year by year(Philipp, 2018), indicating that Sci-Fi has become an increasing impact on computer science. With the foundation relatively laid out, this project aims to investigate a similar topic with a different lens- showing the relationship between sci-fi and technology innovations by exploring the popularity changes of different CS topics across years in these two quite distant genres. The hypothesis of the project is that if Sci-Fis are indeed the inspirations of technology innovations, then its trends of topic popularity might to some extent predict the trends of topic popularity in CS publications. On the other hand, if science fictions function more as a prototyping playground for happening technologies, then the topic popularity trends in two categories might show similarities in their rises and falls. Moreover, with current research primarily focusing on the relationship between American science fiction and technology development while both fields are experiencing global blooming development, it seems an appropriate opportunity to introduce a 4 comparative study of the topic. Therefore, this project collects its data on Chinese science fictions and CS publications from 2009 to 2013. On top of providing a comparative angle to the study of relationship between sci- fi and science, focusing on Chinese sci-fi during the selected time period carries its own purpose of investigating the trends of topic popularity during the Chinese Sci-fi golden age(Song, 2018), a contemporary literature movement that arguably has its impact not only on culture, but also science and even international relations(Huang, 2019). This thesis includes three main chapters: the first describing processes of making this project, the second analyzing results from this project, and the last is the design document for the interactive web- based data presentation. 5 2. CHAPTER 1: DATA 2.1 Sample Selection To investigate whether there exists a relationship between science fiction imaginations about technology and actual technology developments, two sets of data are needed. The first set is data on the occurrence of different themes in Chinese computer science publications across the years 2009 to 2013, and the second set is that in Chinese science fictions. Criteria for choosing the sources where data is collected include 1) Both CS publication and science fiction sources should be creditable and possibly leading publications in the field. This condition tries to ensure that the data collected reflect the mainstream trends across time in the two fields. 2) Both publications should be relatively timely in publishing work submitted to them. Both sources should preferably be monthly publications instead of quarterly or yearly. This condition might minimize the difference in sources’ publishing speed impacting trends in popular topics. 3) Both publications should be general in terms of what paper/story topics they accept, as specialized publications won’t be able to reflect trends. 4) Both publications should mainly focus on local Chinese works rather than foreign ones. 6 The search for the source for Chinese science fictions is relatively simple, with the final selected publication being Science Fiction World( 科幻世界). First, there are not many choices when it comes to Chinese science fiction magazines. Other than science fiction, which started in 1979 under the name QiTan(奇谈) and KeHuanWenYi(科幻文艺), it there are two other publications that roughly fulfill the criteria listed above. One of them is King of Science Fiction(科幻大王) and the other one is World Science Fiction Expo(科幻世界博). The latter- World Science Fiction Expo- was ruled out as the data source of the project for its suspension in 2008 and its relative lack of focus on Chinese local science fictions. While King of Science Fiction stood as a business competitor to Science Fiction World throughout the years that this project intended to cover, it was also ruled out because it is more targeted towards younger readers, and focuses more on comics as well as western works rather than local ones(Baike, 2015). Science Fiction World did not become the final choice only because the other options are ruled out though. It actually fulfills all the criteria listed above perfectly. Its long history, popularity as well as becoming the best-selling science fiction magazine in 2000(Sahuls, 2019) makes it clear that it is the renowned and popular publication that the project is looking for. Moreover, the magazine focuses mainly on local Chinese 7 Sci-Fi, with the annual ‘galaxy award’(银河奖) attracting many Chinese science fiction writers to contribute(LiangTaide,2019). There were concerns about the 2010 rebellion that happened in the Science Fiction World publishing house affecting the quality of work around that time. However, such concerns would not disqualify Science Fiction World from being the data source. How the event may have impacted this project’s results will be discussed in a later chapter. Secondary data, instead of primary data is used in this project for data on topics in Chinese CS academic publications. Meng Xiaofeng, a scholar of Renmin University of China, led a team of two to collect data on the citation frequency of Chinese CS publications across 60 years(Meng, Fan, Su, 2019). Their research gets its data from 10 major Chinese CS publications, including but not limited to general publications like China Computer Association Communications(中国计算机协会通 信) and field specific publications like China Journal of Image and Graphics(中国图象图形学报). Though their research is intended to investigate the citation situation of Chinese CS journals in ScholarSpace, their data on the number of citations of differently themed CS publications across the years proves to be very valuable for this project, as it accurately reflects the change in 8 popularity of different CS topics. Thus, data from Meng and his team’s research fulfills all the requirements for this project, as it focuses on local Chinese CS journals, only includes data from renowned journals, and also collects data from journals including a wide range of topics. One challenge that is posted by using Meng’s data, however, is that due to the large size of the sample(10 journals) that his research uses, comparing the occurrence of certain-themed publications between CS publications and Sci-fi is not viable as the sample size for sci-fi is merely one magazine instead of ten. The problem cannot