Politics of Monsters

Back at Millenicon, I was on the “Politics of the Undead” panel. The idea was that certain movie monsters seem to gain popularity when certain political parties are in power. We talked merrily about the possible ways that this could go. Is it real? If so, why? What mechanism or Jungian archetype is scaring the pants off of different types of folks?

It was great fun – but all pure speculation. Sure, I could run a survey – but who has the time to code all those answers?

And then I was introduced to SurveyGizmo. I’m student-teaching an undergraduate research methods class. The professor suggested that the students try this service out. (Our college has determined that SurveyGizmo meets their standards of accessiblity and information security, and so recommends it. I’ve not tried any of the others.) Since I’m a student (though a graduate one), I decided to try out the student account so I could help my students.

And what better survey to try it with than politics and monsters? Since MARCON is this month (and has a horror theme), I thought it’d be a great thing to talk about.

So if you have two to five minutes (it really is that short), take my survey. Then pass it along to two (or more!) friends! The link to the survey is here. I’ll be keeping the survey live for a little while (approximately a month), unless we reach the maximum respondents for the free student account sooner. I’ll run the data and write it up here (keeping the stats geekery to a minimum) for your pleasure in June.

[1] In the United States of America. Sorry.