The Theory of Related-ivity: Segment V

[The Theory of Related-ivity:

A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category

by Heather Rose Jones

(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions. If you’ve come in at the middle, start here.)

Contents

Part 2: Methodology

2.4 Categorization Process

2.4.1 Analysis Process

2.4.2 Gender

2.4.3 Media

2.4.4 Category

2.4.5 Specific Topics

Part 2: Methodology

2.4 Categorization Process

2.4.1 Analysis Process

For each year, the following comparison data has been identified or calculated.

• Number of nominees in the data set for: Finalists, Long List (i.e., Finalists plus typically the next 10 nominees), all available nominees. Prior to EPH, there are 5 Finalists unless there is a tie for final place, after EPH there are 6 Finalists and ties are highly unlikely due to the process. In the post-EPH data, the Long List may have 15 or 16 nominees. In a few years, a more extensive list of nominees is available, however these are not useful for trend comparisons due to the infrequency. If a more extensive set of nominees is available, they have been included in the Long List data only if the number is equivalent to larger sets produced due to ties.
• Maximum number of nominations for any one item. (The largest number is used even if the nominee with the largest number was determined to be ineligible.)
• Minimum number of nominations for that group (i.e., Finalist or Long List). Before EPH, the simple count of nominations is used. Under EPH, it’s hypothetically possible that a nominee that did not become a Finalist had more absolute nominations than a Finalist. However, for the Finalist group, the lowest number of absolute nominations among the Finalists is used. For the Long List, the lowest number of nominations within the group defined as the Long List is used.[1]
• Did that year’s Winner have the highest number of nominating ballots?
• Average gender fraction for the group. (See the chapter on Gender in this section for how this was determined.)
• Gender fraction of the Winner.
• Average number of credited authors/creators per work.[2]
• Fraction of nominees that were single-author.
• Count of each type of Media represented in the group. (See the chapter on Media in this section for how this was determined.) Only 1 Media tag is assigned to each work.
• Media of the Winner.
• Count of each type of Category represented in the group. (See the chapter on Category in this section for how this was assigned.) Many nominees are associated with more than one Category, therefore the counts will often add up to more than the number of nominees in the group.
• Categor(ies) of the Winner.
• Other data tags, such as the People or Property that is the subject of the work, whether the work primarily concerns science fiction, fantasy, or horror,[3] Publisher, and whether the work is part of an identified publication Series. (See the chapter on Specific Topics in this section for an explanation of these items.)

2.4.2 Gender

Coding of Gender

The best effort was made to identify the public gender of each person listed as a creator of the work from generally reliable references (Wikipedia, SF Encyclopedia, Fancyclopedia) or from personal social media or biographies, with other methods as a less preferred choice.

Gender tags are based on the pronouns used or the use of other gendered language to refer to the person, unless there an explicit reference to the person being non-binary or gender-fluid while using gendered pronouns. In a very few cases, gender has been assumed based on the apparent gender of the name,[4] or gender has been identified from personal information provided by knowledgeable parties. In the case of people whose current gender is different from that assigned at birth, their public gender identity at the time of nomination has been used. People who identify as non-binary or gender fluid or any other similar term have been categorized as “non-binary.” It’s worth noting that (as far as can be determined) all nominees categorized as non-binary or gender-fluid were assigned female at birth and read as female to the non-knowledgeable observer. For this reason, as the analysis is interested in how perceived gender influences nomination, the discussion is presented in terms of “male” and “non-male” (which also simplifies the discussion significantly).[5]

In one case, it was not possible to assign author gender as only initials were used and the person is too obscure to show up in reference works. In isolated cases, only corporate authorship was listed or no named author was given. For these, no gender was assigned and the item was not included in calculations. In one case of multi-person authorship where social media handles were used, a very rough estimate of overall gender ratios was calculated based on subjective perception of the gender presentation of the handles.[6]

Proportional Gender Fraction

For each work, the proportional author gender per work was calculated, and for each analytical group (Finalists, Long List, or all) an overall average of these proportions was calculated. So, for example, in a 5-work Finalist set, if 2 works had single male authors, 1 work had two male authors, 1 work had 3 female authors, and 1 work had 2 male authors and 1 female author, the overall gender fraction would be calculated as:

• M = (1 + 1 + 2/2 + 0 + 2/3)/5 = 3.67/5 = 0.73
• F = (0 + 0 + 0 + 3/3 + 1/3)/5 = 1.33/5 = 0.27

Occasionally, the proportions won’t add up to 1 due to non-gendered creators or simply the vagaries of rounding. Gender distribution is calculated for both the Finalists and the entire Long List. (During the Non-Fiction Book era, there were only a few years where more data than the Finalists was given and those sets are treated as if they were Long Lists.)

2.4.3 Media

Nominees have been categorized as one of the following types of Media. This classification is intended to track the format or distribution method of the content. Each work is assigned only one Media tag, although in the case of some works this may be an arbitrary choice.

Book—This includes works published as a physical text object in bound form, even if other distribution methods are available. It could include works published only in electronic text format that are presented as a Book (as opposed to a Website or Blog), but no such examples appear. While it may include individual works that are part of a Series (such as the Spectrum Art Books), it does not include items better classified as Periodicals, even if the specific nominee is a “special issue” of the Periodical. This is, unsurprisingly, the largest Media type comprising 85% of the data set. (Detailed comparison statistics will be discussed later.)

In alphabetical order, the other Media types are:

Album (musical)—An audio compilation of musical pieces, released as a single coherent work.

Article/Blog—An individual short non-fiction prose work, typically distributed electronically via the internet. (Collections of Articles would generally fall under Book.)

Dissertation—A non-fiction research project created for an academic degree not distributed through standard publication channels.[7]

Ephemera—Printed matter (or electronic versions of material that historically has been printed matter) produced for a specific and transient context and not distributed through traditional publication mechanisms. Generally, this applies to Convention-related publications.

Event—An organized, time-bound, interactive experience, such as a Convention or a specific activity held within the context of such an Event.

Game—A work for which the consumer interaction and input shapes and affects the nature and outcome of the experience.[8]

Periodical—One or more issues of a publication issued, well, periodically. This is distinguished from Book in that the nominee is from an ongoing sequence of related material rather than being a complete and finished entity. In this group, it is possible that awareness of the ongoing Series contributed to the nomination of specific issues.

Podcast—An audio periodical.[9] In theory this could include isolated, single, non-musical recordings, but there weren’t any of those so the familiar term is used.

Social Media—A work appearing in the form of a Social Media posting that doesn’t conform to the look-and-feel of another Media type such as Article/Blog.

Speech—A work appearing originally as a live verbal presentation even if later appearing in the form of another Media type such as Article/Blog.

Video—A work presented in visual format, comprising both audio and non-static visual elements.

Website—A work where interaction is with complex elements of a web interface (as contrasted with a specific static text presentation appearing as part of a Website). In general, the site will be dynamic to some degree.

Some of these Media classifications cover a very small number of nominees, as will be discussed in the Historic Trends section.

In addition, Media formats were grouped into 3 supersets:

Text—Book, Article/Blog, Dissertation, Periodical

Audio-Visual—Album, Podcast, Video

Other—Ephemera, Event, Game, Social Media, Speech, Website

2.4.4 Category

Category tags operate independently from Media tags and are more varied. Effort has been made to keep this level of classification relatively objective, however in most cases it has been based on the most accessible public summary of the work’s contents. Some Categories have very fuzzy boundaries. More than one Category is frequently assigned in order to better represent the scope of the contents. These are presented in alphabetical order.

Art—Display, discussion, or criticism where the primary content is visual Art. This would not include discussions of art or artists where the inclusion of images is not the main focus.

Autobiography—A narrative (generally chronological) presentation of a person’s life written by the subject. (This is categorized separately from Memoir and Letters, but all 3 have been grouped for analysis.)

Biography—A narrative (generally chronological) presentation of a person’s life not written by the subject.

Convention—An organized, time-bound, structured multi-person experience. This may be an isolated instance but generally represents one of an ongoing series of instances.

Convention Publications—An informational publication put out by a specific Convention and related to activities at that Convention.

Craft—A work intended to provide advice or guidance about a profession or activity.

Criticism—An analytical discussion of a subject or work that generally relates it to a larger framework of ideas or experiences. This Category can have very fuzzy boundaries with Essays, Reviews, and some others.

Essays—A discussion or presentation, generally on a specific topic, usually expressing some degree of personal opinion by the author. This Category can have very fuzzy boundaries with Criticism, Reviews, and some others.

Experience—An experience that does not rely on a specific structured interactive space but is generally time-bound in some fashion. This is a rather eclectic group of items that didn’t fit well elsewhere and the label is somewhat arbitrary.[10]

Fiction—A work of imaginative prose. As the Best Related Work description indicates, “if fictional, [the nominee] is noteworthy primarily for aspects other than the fictional text.” There is further discussion of eligibility around this Category in both the Eligibility Notes chapter under Data and Eligibility, and the Fiction chapter in the Category section.

Graphic—A work in which a narrative (fictional or non-fictional) strongly relies on sequential art.

History—A work presenting and discussing the History or historic context of a topic. (Compare to Journalism.)

Humor—A work intended for humorous entertainment.

Interviews—Similar to Biography or Memoir but elicited in the form of an interactive Interview and often being a collection of Interviews of various people.

Journalism—Investigation, analysis, or communication about an ongoing or contemporary event or situation. This has very fuzzy boundaries with History, but is used to tag works with more immediacy, where the work may be “breaking news” as it were.

Letters—Collections of correspondence of documentary value where the text of the Letters (rather than an analysis of them) is the primary content. (This has been combined with Autobiography for analytic purposes.)

Memoir—Non-chronological anecdotes or discussions of a person’s life, generally written by the subject or via Interview with a second party. (This has been combined with Autobiography for analytic purposes.)

Music—Musical performance.[11]

Photography—A presentation of photographic works, where any accompanying text is less significant.

Poetry—A work of Poetry.[12]

Reference—A work of organized information, typically not presented in narrative form.

Reviews—A collection of discussions of specific works. There can be overlap between this Category and Criticism.

Role Playing Game—An interactive Game in which players take on character roles.[13]

Science—A work examining or explaining some aspect of real-world or speculative Science.

Supercategories

For some purposes, it has made sense to combine content Categories into more general groupings to make trends more obvious. Each work has been classified with respect to the predominant content and only one Supercategory is assigned. The following Supercategories have been used:

• Analysis: Craft, Criticism, Essays, Journalism, Reviews
• Associated: Convention, Convention Publications, Experience, Fiction, Graphic, Humor, Music, Poetry, Role Playing Game
• Image: Art, Photography
• Information: History, Reference, Science
• People: Autobiography, Biography, Interviews, Letters, Memoir

2.4.5 Specific Topics

In addition to the Category tags, information about the specific Topic of the work has been identified, when relevant. Not all works will have a Topic. For example, a work may be a collection of the Reviews, Essays, and Criticism by a specific author on a variety of topics. Or a work may be a collection of Essays and Criticism by various authors on a specific media Property. The latter would have a Topic tag while the former would not.

This additional information, has been structured using four fields:

• Person—This indicates the person who is the subject of a work. If more than one person is the subject, it is tagged “various authors” or “various artists” as appropriate to indicate that the subject is individuals but a full list would be unwieldy. Multi-person subjects have not been analyzed in terms of statistics. For works with a single subject, the gender of the subject has been identified using the same process as for identifying the gender of authors/creators. Doing a gender analysis for multi-subject works would require reviewing the works in detail and has not been done.
• Property—This indicates the specific media Property that is the subject of a work, if relevant. There may be some fuzziness with Person when the work concerns several Properties associated with a specific creator.
• Genre—When the title or description of a work indicates it has a focus on science fiction or fantasy or horror generally (but not when it focuses on a specific Person or Property in one of those fields) it is tagged as such.[14]
• Specific Topic—This identifies if a work has a predominant Topic other than a Person or media Property. This field is also used to flag if the work is tagged for a Person or Property.[15] This data has been used anecdotally but is not useful for meaningful trending.[16]

In addition to these tags, the Publisher has been identified and note has been taken of whether the work is part of an ongoing Series. This could be an annual publication such as the Spectrum Art Books. It could be part of an academic press Series such as the “Modern Masters of Science Fiction” Biography Series. It could be a periodic Essay on a continuing Topic such as the #BlackSpecFic Report.[17]

(Segment VI will cover Part 3 Historic Trends, Section 3.1 General Trends, Chapters 3.1.1 Introduction and 3.1.2 Basic Nomination Data.)