As part of my dissertation research, I am attempting to gauge Harry Potter fans’ perceptions of the relative canonicity of different sources of information about the universe of the story. The term canon generally refers to an entire fan community’s collective understanding of what constitutes accepted information about the world of the shared text, but in a large and highly participatory fan community like the Harry Potter one, each person may have a different opinion about what sources are canonical and what makes them that way. This survey is an attempt to find out how different fans rate the canonicity of several major sources of Harry Potter lore. Please read the prompt carefully and answer the question thoughtfully. Also, I’d like to get as large a sample as possible, so please send the survey link to other fans.
the Dr. Tess blog 