Slash på svenska : en komparativ studie mellan svensk slash och tidigare slash-forskning

Sammanfattning: Slash fiction was once a marginalized genre, but with the coming of Internet it is now growing larger; one example of this is the expanding popularity of the Harry Potter fandom. With the rising popularity comes a flourishing discussion on the subject, often leading to interesting and inventive ideas from the slash community. Our interest in the phenomenon of slash fiction, in which existing fictional male characters (e.g. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy) are paired together in a romantic (often sexual) way, derives from observing the reactions to this genre. While writing our essay on non-slash fan fiction we found several online discussions on who writes slash and why they write it. We found ourselves fascinated by the interesting topics and the great popularity of the genre. Our goal with this bachelor thesis is to examine if the previous research, which has mostly been conducted in the Anglo-Saxon speech area (USA, United Kingdom and Canada), can be applied to Swedish readers and writers of slash. After giving an outline of the field of research, we will conduct a study in three parts. Part one is a quantitative study concerned with the age and gender of Swedish writers and readers of slash fiction and part two is a qualitative study of spontaneous online conversations on slash. We also sent a questionnaire to Swedish users at Fanfiction.net, and in part three we will look into and analyze the answers we got.