Research

My cur­rent research project is Nerds! A Media-Ethnographic Case Study in Sub­cul­ture The­ory, which I am con­duct­ing for my PhD in the School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity, Burn­aby, BC. This page con­tains (1) a brief overview or sum­mary of the study, (2) a more detailed out­line of its aims, meth­ods, and pro­ce­dures, and (3) con­tact infor­ma­tion for myself and the SFU Office of Research Ethics. I am no longer recruit­ing study par­tic­i­pants, but am happy to field any ques­tions about the research project.

1. Overview

Nerds! is a research study on the local nerd cul­ture scene. The study exam­ines the resources that are avail­able to par­tic­i­pants through local retail estab­lish­ments and orga­ni­za­tions serv­ing the nerd sub­cul­ture (for exam­ple, comic book stores, gam­ing shops, and fan clubs) and the expe­ri­ences of indi­vid­ual par­tic­i­pants through a series of inter­views and ses­sions of par­tic­i­pant observation.

2. Out­line of Study Aims, Meth­ods, and Procedures

Goals of Study

The recent promi­nence of nerd cul­ture in the mass media and pop culture—as evi­denced by sci-fi, fan­tasy, and super-hero movies becom­ing Hol­ly­wood block­buster mate­r­ial, the num­ber of films and sit-coms about nerds or fea­tur­ing a nerdy pro­tag­o­nist, the mas­sive rev­enues gen­er­ated by hit video games, and the con­tin­ued incor­po­ra­tion of the World Wide Web into every­day life—has led many com­men­ta­tors to sug­gest that “the geeks have inher­ited the earth” and the nerds have, at last, had their “revenge.”

Yet, in all of these cases nerd cul­ture is still largely defined by stereo­types about nerds, and it remains unclear what the impacts of this main­stream­ing process might be on the orig­i­nal audi­ences. The goal of this study is to exam­ine how nerd cul­ture and iden­tity is defined, how the var­i­ous aspects of nerd cul­ture are orga­nized into a coher­ent sub­cul­ture or lifestyle, the ways that par­tic­i­pa­tion in this sub­cul­ture con­tributes to its mem­bers’ lives, and the effects of the main­stream­ing process.

This study con­tributes to the sci­en­tific lit­er­a­ture on sub­cul­ture and lifestyles by explor­ing how shared tastes and cul­tural activ­i­ties con­tribute to the cre­ation of groups and com­mu­ni­ties and what fac­tors enable and limit these activities..

Pro­ce­dures

The study has two phases. Phase I focussed on retail stores and orga­ni­za­tions related to the nerd sub­cul­ture (for exam­ple, comic book stores, gam­ing shops, fan clubs, and so on), and is now com­plete. Phase II focusses on the expe­ri­ences of indi­vid­u­als who par­tic­i­pate in nerdy activ­i­ties and/or con­sume nerdy prod­ucts and media.

Both phases of the study make heavy use of two social-scientific research meth­ods, qual­i­ta­tive inter­view­ing and par­tic­i­pant obser­va­tion:

• Qual­i­ta­tive inter­views are guided but open-ended inter­views about the expe­ri­ences, thoughts, and feel­ings of the inter­vie­wee, usu­ally last­ing around an hour each.
• Par­tic­i­pant obser­va­tion involves the inves­ti­ga­tor research­ing an activ­ity by tak­ing part in it, observ­ing and talk­ing to other par­tic­i­pants, and com­par­ing his or her expe­ri­ences with what other par­tic­i­pants do and say.

In Phase I, the own­ers or man­agers of retail stores and the orga­niz­ers of groups were inter­viewed about their role in the local nerd cul­ture scene and about their customers/members. Ses­sions of par­tic­i­pant obser­va­tion on the premises of retail loca­tions or at group events were con­ducted. They were also asked to refer the inves­ti­ga­tor to poten­tial par­tic­i­pants for Phase II.

In Phase II, a group of six par­tic­i­pants com­pleted a series of inter­views related to their per­sonal back­grounds, expe­ri­ences in nerd cul­ture, and shop­ping and media con­sump­tion habits. For one of these inter­views, I requested access to par­tic­i­pants’ home in order to view and dis­cuss col­lec­tions of objects asso­ci­ated with nerd cul­ture (for exam­ple, action fig­ures, video tapes and DVDs, or books). I also accom­pa­nied Phase II study par­tic­i­pants to nerdy sites, events, and activ­i­ties in which they ordi­nar­ily par­tic­i­pate (for exam­ple, shop­ping for comic books, a Dun­geons & Drag­ons game, or an anime con­ven­tion) for par­tic­i­pant observation.

Given the study’s focus on leisure activ­i­ties, the risk of harm to all par­tic­i­pants is low. It is pos­si­ble, though unlikely, that inter­views may touch on sen­si­tive per­sonal infor­ma­tion. How­ever, research par­tic­i­pants were free to decline any ques­tion that they felt uncom­fort­able answer­ing, and their anonymity was guar­an­teed in order to pro­tect any infor­ma­tion they provide.

3. Con­tact

If you have ques­tions about this project, its progress, or its results and find­ings, please con­tact me (nerdstudy@benjaminwoo.net). If you par­tic­i­pated in this study and have any con­cerns about my con­duct as a researcher, please con­tact the SFU Office of Research Ethics, attn: Dr. Hal Wein­berg (hal_weinberg@sfu.ca).