Investigating the Intersection of Science Fiction, Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Science Research

TL;DR

This research explores how science fiction influences computer science research by analyzing publications through interdisciplinary content analysis, aiming to understand its role and implications in the field.

Contribution

It introduces an interdisciplinary methodology to analyze science fiction's presence and impact in peer-reviewed computer science literature.

Findings

Preliminary evidence of science fiction themes in research papers

Identification of research questions linking science fiction and HCI

Discussion of future research directions

Abstract

This paper outlines ongoing dissertation research located in the intersection of science fiction, human-computer interaction and computer science. Through an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing from fields such as human-computer interaction, film theory and studies of science and technology, qualitative and quantitative content analysis techniques are used to contextually analyze expressions of science fiction in peer-reviewed computer science research repositories, such as the ACM or IEEE Xplore Digital Libraries. This paper concisely summarizes and introduces the relationship of science fiction and computer science research and presents the research questions, aims and implications in addition to prior work and study methodology. In the latter part of this work-in-progress report, preliminary results, current limitations, future work and a post-dissertation trajectory are outlined.