ABSTRACT
Science fiction, in many obvious and not-so-obvious ways, reflects the nature of modern society. A serious and wide-ranging critical treatment of this literary form would be virtually impossible without some consideration of its sociology. The sociologist may approach an SF story in one of three ways: as a product, bearing the imprint of social forces at every level from fundamental narrative structures to the precise forms in which it is manufactured, distributed and sold; as a communication or message, with a particular function for a particular audience; and, finally, as a document articulating and passing judgment upon the social situation from which it emerges. The considerations involved in seeing science fiction or any other cultural form as product, message, and document are so diverse that it may be misleading to bring them under a single heading. In addition, the separation between ‘critical’ and ‘sociological’ approaches to literary material is often artificial. The level at which SF texts exist as documents, for instance, is not easily distinguishable from their role as social criticism (to be discussed in chapter 4). What characterizes the sociological approach to science fiction in the long run is that it is concerned to set the individual genre within the total social process to which it belongs.
