Consumers’ reaction to sci-fi as a source of information for technological development: An empirical analysis

Science fiction (sci-fi) creative products inspire individuals by envisioning alternative futures and imaginary technological development. The stimuli conveyed by sci-fi creative products can trigger consumers' interest, which nowadays translate into reactions on social media platforms. Consequently, these reactions allow to understand the attitude of potential consumers towards not-yet-developed technologies and inform firms developing novel and unconventional technological solutions, hence reducing their market uncertainty. This study aims at exploring if the individuals' reactions to the technological themes presented through sci-fi creative products and conveyed through social media may become a source of information for innovating firms, that may consequently affect their technology development processes. To answer our research question, we relied on the individuals’ reactions to the sci-fi series Black Mirror conveyed through Twitter and on patents related to the technological themes presented in the series. Results show that in most cases there is a significant variation in social media engagement about the presented technology after the first airing of the episode and, in a subset of cases we found a significant variation in the mean number of related patents filed per day, that can be associated with an actual change in the technology development processes.