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This volume begins with the general assumption that suspense is a
major criterion for both an audience's selection and evaluation of
entertaining media offerings. This assumption is supported not only
by the popularity of suspenseful narratives, but also by the
reasons users give for their actual choice of media contents.
Despite this, there is no satisfying theory to describe and explain
what suspense actually is, how exactly it is caused by films or
books, and what kind of effect it has on audiences. This book's
main objective is to provide that theory by bringing together
scholars from different disciplines who are working on the issue.
The editors' goal is to reflect the "state of the art" as much as
it is to highlight and encourage further developments in this area.
There are two ways of approaching the problem of describing and
explaining suspense: an analysis of suspenseful texts or the
reception process. Researchers who follow the more text-oriented
approach identify the uncertainty of the narrative outcome, the
threat or danger for the protagonist, the play with time delay, or
other factors as important and necessary for the production of
suspense. The more reception-oriented scholar focuses on the
cognitive activities of audiences, readers' expectations, the
curiosity of onlookers, their emotions, and their relationships
with the protagonists. A correspondence between the two seems to be
quite difficult, though necessary to determine.
Both perspectives are important in order to describe and explain
suspense. Thus, the editors utilize the thesis that suspense is an
activity of the audience (reader, onlooker, etc.) that is related
to specific features and characteristics of the text (books, films,
etc.). Their question is: What kind of relation? The answer comes
from finding out "how, why, " and "which" elements of the text
cause effects that are experienced as suspense.
Scholars from semiotics, literary criticism, cultural studies, and
film theory assess the problem from a text-oriented point of view,
dealing primarily with the "how" and "which." Other scholars
present the psychological perspective by focusing on the cognitive
and emotional processes that underlie viewers' experience of
suspense; that is, the reception theory tries to answer the
question of "why" suspenseful texts may be experienced as they
are.
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