Connecting with the Future: The Role of Science Fiction Movies in Helping Consumers Understand Privacy-Technology Trade-Offs

This article examines the ways in which sci‐fi films help consumers understand the tradeoffs between personal privacy concerns and other societal concerns that arise due to new technologies. Drawing upon media priming theory, the authors present a conceptual framework and accompanying research questions that suggest how priming from a futuristic movie influences consumers sentiment toward technology and privacy, from its release date and throughout its availability on movie streaming services. Through a series of studies, including qualitative analysis and text‐based sentiment analysis of reviews in the IMBD database, the authors provide evidence to support this theoretical conceptualization. The findings demonstrate that online reviews are useful as a data source to gauge emotional intensity and text analysis of science fiction film reviews provides a useful methodology for understanding consumer perceptions about the future. Science fiction movies may help consumers frame privacy‐technology tradeoffs and take action to protect their privacy.