Blog Post 3: Research Gap

 Blog Post 2

I am not pleased. I have specific ideas of what I want to do for my literature review. Unfortunately, I can find pretty much zero peer reviewed articles for any variation of what I want to do, regardless of which platform I use.

Specifically, these are my updated ideas for a literature review:

1. Using Psychographics to Generate Ideal Reader Personas for Fiction Writers

2. Using Psychographics to Analyze Market Trends in Speculative Fiction

3. Using Generative AI in Refining Plot Narratives in Speculative Fiction

4. Using Generative AI to Develop Ideal Reader Personas

I have a few other variations on the theme, which is wholly applicable to rhetoric. No matter what keyword I use, however, I am getting no reasonable results that align with the topic...or, at least, none that would make any sense, since they're all over the map on what psychographics would be used for in designing a written product.

Of the articles I have managed to find, these are the closest I have been able to come to my topic:

1. Breakthrough Creativity and Psychographics by Butash, Adrian and Evans, J. The problem is is that the article is from 1985 - long before the availability of the Internet, much less Generative AI.

2. Creating Narrative Scenarios: Science Fiction Prototyping at Emerge by Burnam-Fink, Michael. Much more recent (2014), but guess what? It's in Futures, not a PTW journal.

3. Understand Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey by Lemon, Katherine and Verhoef, P. Again, much more recent (2016), but that's well before AI. Also, while using psychographics is entirely applicable as a marketing tool, I'm not sure of the relevance of an article from the Journal of Marketing would be to PTW.

4.  The last thing I found is a one-page opinion piece about writers going on strike over AI.

I went down in specificity as far as "Psychographics in Speculative Fiction" and "Psychographics in Fiction." Both returned zero results. I tried "Psychographics in Character Design" and "Using Psychographics for Fiction Writing," both with zero results. I then tried "Reader Personae in Fiction Writing," and while there were more results, they were more oriented on an author's persona and public perception of their brand.

Frankly, I think the topic of AI as an rhetorical tool to improve the authorial process in fiction is too new, particularly with regards to persuading authors how to use the new technology to enhance their product and speed technology. Likewise, there appears to be no body of research available as yet that is critical of the development and implementation of AI as an author tool beyond opinion pieces scattered across the web (or rather, none that I can find, especially those that may have been peer-reviewed). 

That said, I could do a literature review of psychographics, but based on the articles I have looked at so far, the papers are all across the spectrum of disciplines. Putting together a literature review that would make sense and align with where I would want to go with it is beyond the scope of this class; delving into this topic is actually more suited to being a researcher writing a thesis, which would involve months of research and synthesis to create a finished product.

I have begun thinking about other possible topics, but frankly, I don't really care about the ones I have come up with. I'm not interested in researching typography, font design, or other technical elements. I looked to see if there were articles about how voice technology in previously text-dominated environments disempowers and excludes individuals with hearing impairment (an outgrowth from my thesis on virtual worlds), but I'm not really finding anything relevant.

I'm at a sticky point with this class. I don't really need it, as I already know how to conduct and write a literature review, research projects, theses/dissertations, and funding proposals, and I am having a hard time aligning it with personal and professional goals, and I'm not finding any topics of interest.

I don't know. I'm frustrated.

**Update**

I've been trying to look for additional information about psychographics and reader profiles, and I am finding none that relate to the general focus in academic journals. That said, I have found a few that, at first glance, seem to align more with what I am looking to do; they'll require more reading to determine if they're actually worth using.

1. "3 Psychographic Gems You MUST Find Out About Your Customers." The Daily Egg, 14 Sep. 2015, https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/3-psychographic-gems/ Accessed 11 Sep. 2023.

It's fairly detailed, but it isn't a scholarly or trade journal.

2. Wiburg, Karen. "Reader Personas: Know Your Audience." Clearsight Books, 26 Mar. 2020, https://clearsightbooks.com/reader-personas-know-your-audience/ Accessed 11 Sep. 2023

Not the most detailed, but aligned with the focus of what I would want to talk about were I to expand a Lit Review into a full research paper. Given the paucity of academic journal articles arguing the utility of employing AI, it is a solid subject for research. But, with nothing I can find on the topic, I may have to rely on non-academic sources to indicate there is a specific area of research that is being neglected.

3. Zalewski, Nadia. "Buyer Persona Psychographics: How to Understand Your Customers?" Medium, 24 July 2020, https://medium.com/@programming.nadya/key-traits-of-actionable-buyer-persona-psychographic-profiles-b7e1a9218309 Accessed 11 Sep. 2023.

Again, not a horrifically analytical article, but a bit more detailed and with some decent arguments on how to use it. Not exactly the focus I am looking for, but it is interelated.

4. "An Author's Guide to Creating Reader Personas." Book1One, https://www.book1one.com/resources/news-insights/an-author-s-guide-to-creating-reader-personas/, Accessed 11 Sep. 2023.

Defintely not a scholarly journal, and not of much use beyond explaining why personas are important for authors to use.

5. "Reader Personas: Why Your Content Creation Process Needs a Human Face." Prize Content, https://www.prizecontent.com/blog/reader-personas-why-your-content-creation-process-needs-a-human-face#:~:text=Psychographics,the%20%27who%27%20of%20demographics, Accessed 11 Sep. 2023. 

Again, more of a sales page but with some useful information. Not exactly solid evidence.

The problem with this literature review that I am running into is, again, that I have a very specific concept in mind and there simply isn't any easy-to-find scholarly or trade journals about it. If I drop down to just doing a paper on psychographics, I'll be drawing heavily on the marketing journals for the information; same thing goes with talking about personas. Everything I have found is geared toward creating marketing lures to get a potential customer to click the "buy" button.

My focus is specifically rhetorical - designing the actual content of a product (in this case, a book) that will convince the persona using it (the reader) to stay with it to the last page, then the next book, and the one after that - building a customer into a loyal fan. 

My premise is that by employing psychographics to create a reader profile, fiction authors such as myself can craft themes, plots, characters, scenes, and settings that target a swath of very specific consumers. The very definition of what rhetoric is supposed to do is to engage the reader (or other stakeholders) in the topic. Similarly, by having the psychographics of the reader defined by a profile, it becomes easier to craft content (e.g., blog posts, online articles, scholarly articles, how-to manuals, etc.) that writing professionals should be learning and employing.

Admittedly, I am looking at this from a very specific angle: developing the tools that will take my independent business from a cash suck to a profit machine. That in itself is precisely why this topic needs to be explored from the content creation perspective, not consumer-targeting capitalist marketing approach that dominates the search results no matter the keywords or phrases I use.