The Fear of Knowing

The fear of spoilers is now a global phenomenon, but it had been barely researched until recently. For the first time, this volume brings together scholars and practitioners from a variety of fields to explore the concept. Do spoilers really diminish our enjoyment of films, books or games? How do different fan communities deal with the issue? Has spoiling always been frowned upon, or were there times when it was handled differently? And how has the fear of spoilers affected the way media content is produced and marketed? The contributors to The Fear of Knowing come from the fields of film, literature, game and fan studies, as well as empirical psychology, and their findings are—spoiler alert!—not always what you might expect.

Simon Spiegel is Privatdozent and senior researcher in film studies at the University of Zurich. He has published widely on science fiction and utopian films, and is the chief editor of the interdisciplinary journal Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung.

With contribution by
Matthias Brütsch Andrew Bumsted Kristina Busse James Aaron Green Milan Hain Tiffany Hong Albrecht Koschorke Andreas Rauscher Judith E. Rosenbaum Dana Steglich Marcus Stiglegger Tobias Unterhuber Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock