http://www.purdueexponent.com/index.php/module/Section/section_id/3?module=article&story_id=14706

Vampires emerge as paranormal favorite 

By Amy O'Shea

Features Editor

Vampires have flooded popular culture and captivated Purdue students, but experts say it has little correlation with people actually believing in the paranormal.

“The data actually shows beliefs in the paranormal have been remarkably steady over time,” said Glen Sparks, professor of communication and popular culture analyst.

Surveys from the ’70s to today demonstrate similar percentages of people who express paranormal beliefs.

Sparks also said paranormal elements’ presence in the media can reinforce or discourage people’s beliefs. Movies such as “Twilight” have certainly elevated vampires into the radar, however, any emergence of a phenomenon like this is made of complex forces.

“It’s not like vampires are all of a sudden popular because of ‘Twilight,’” Sparks said. “It is a function of what things are in that pipeline.”

When and where a story is written has an impact on the believability of a fictional story. Vampires in the book series and now movie, “Twilight” are representative of today, in a high school setting that almost every American can relate to. For that reason, people enjoy the fictional story, not necessarily because they believe in vampires.

“In a movie like ‘Twilight,’ you have a fictional presentation, but it is to the extent that presentation comes across to the viewer that makes it seem possible.

“Seeing the phenomenon represented visually... loses the rigidity of the belief system that people may have. A person has a very deep anchor on a particular belief, seeing something that counters that belief, then it might be like a force on that anchor.”

But the stream of vampires in pop culture today is not unprecedented. Vampires have been well represented in literature throughout history.

James Nairne, professor of psychological sciences, has studied human cognition and vampires.

“Vampires fit the mold for what a supernatural concept should be,” he said.

From a cognitive perspective, people respond to supernatural concepts that have characteristics similar to what is perceived to be normal, which is one reason vampires have endured the test of time.

“(They) do everything you and I can do. It’s easy for people to identify with,” Nairne said. “Then they have one or two counterintuitive properties.”

Since vampires are normally portrayed like regular people, minus their blood-drinking nocturnal habits, the are believable characters. Other paranormal, grim characters don’t normally last, and are not likely to transmit across cultures, Nairne said.

Nairne will be leading a trip over Spring Break to Trannsylvania for the third time. Since the early 1900s Trannsylvania has been associated with vampires when “Dracula” was written. In the spring of 2010, Nairne will teach a class covering topics of human cognition and vampire history and culture.

With great historical and literary presence, vampires have reemerged back into pop culture and are likely not going anywhere.