The Blake's 7 Q-study
This study used a technique called Q-methodology to explore the different ways in which Blake's 7 fans expressed their likes and dislikes, and the different understandings of the programme and what constitutes 'good' and 'bad' B7 which underpin these,
Method
Members of the Blake's 7 mailing lists and other fans were invited to carry out a sorting exercise, ranking all 52 episodes on a scale from -5 (most disliked) to +5 (most liked). The spread of episodes was as follows:
Rating: |
-5 |
-4 |
-3 |
-2 |
-1 |
0 |
+1 |
+2 |
+3 |
+4 |
+5 |
|
No. of episodes: |
2 |
3 |
4 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
7 |
6 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
Participants were also asked to offer comments as to why they had rated particular episodes highly or low down.
Analysis
Twenty-nine responses were received, they were correlated and factor-analyzed, and 5 interpretable factors emerged. These factors represent clusters of people who have ranked the same episodes in essentially the same fashion, i.e. that have a common understanding of why they like/dislike various episodes. These factors are interpreted by looking at the spread of episodes both within and across factors, and by using the comments which people provided to indicate why they liked or disliked particular episodes. These interpreted factors are known as accounts; and each account represents a different way of enjoying the show.
Account 1 - Beautiful Suffering
Account 2 - If You Were the Only Boy in the World...
Account 3 - A Little Bit of Politics
Account 4 - Universal Constancy
Account 5 - Carry on Up the Rebels!
Libby comes in for the kill, screaming, 'Kneel before my scary SFX, puny human!'