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Escapism is a term that is widely used, generally understood, yet surprisingly under-researched. Certain genres of films and books are often referred to as escapist fare, by both critics and everyday consumers. An implicit understanding seems to exist that a significant proportion of entertainment media content (e.g. movies, books, television programs and video games) affords consumers the opportunity to "escape" from an otherwise humdrum existence. Recent blockbuster comic book movies like The Avengers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles continue to set box office records worldwide. The video game industry reported sales revenues of over US$13bn in 2012, and the recent release of Grand Theft Auto 5 garnered US$1bn in sales in the first three days after its release. With entire seasons of popular series available for streaming online, TV "bingeing" has become increasingly common as the preferred mode of consumption for popular fantasy and science-fiction shows like Game of Thrones and Doctor Who.
In common parlance, escapism has come to represent a process of mentally "getting away from it all" through the consumption of products or services. As a theoretical construct, however, escapism has not enjoyed a uniform definition in the consumer research literature, and consequently, its usage has been inconsistent. In an investigation of online search behavior, for example, Mathwick and Rigdon (2004) define escapism "as state of psychological immersion [...] [in which] a person is fully engaged by the focal activity". In contrast, Russell et al. (2004) define escapism as "the cathartic element that connects a viewer to a TV program". Finally, even when not explicitly defined, the notion of escapism has been invoked to characterize the act of fantasy role-play across a number of consumption scenarios, including historical reenactments (Belk and Costa, 1998), themed restaurants (Kozinets et al. , 2002) and Dungeons and Dragons-esque card games (Martin, 2004).
Beyond the extant consumer behavior literature, there are findings that support the notion of a broader escapism construct as well. In his book This Virtual Life , Evans (2001) defines escapism as any activity that moves an individual from a burdensome reality to a pleasurable "non-reality" through recreation, leisure or the consumption of mass media. In his conceptual framework, Evans argues that escapism is capable of providing temporary fulfillment and satisfaction through the...