The Fear of Knowing Spoilers in Film, TV, Literature and Gaming Culture

Abstract

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.