My first reaction was similar, but I think Luke is probably right. When I think of cases of people generalizing from fictional evidence, it seems to me that people are most likely to draw on movies. We may imagine books vividly, but movies are seen, and our brains developed in a context where that which was seen could be assumed to be real.
Cf lukeprog’s answer to my comment, indeed, much more people see movies—so when you generalize from fictional evidence, you’ll refer to movies more easily than to books, because you’ve more chance of the other knowing the movie.
But you know that your audience did read a book, it’s not more uncommon to call to a book (LOTR, Foundation or 1984 for example) than to movies. For myself, I tend to refer to books more than to movies when I know that people did read them, but more to movies when I don’t know my audience well.
My first reaction was similar, but I think Luke is probably right. When I think of cases of people generalizing from fictional evidence, it seems to me that people are most likely to draw on movies. We may imagine books vividly, but movies are seen, and our brains developed in a context where that which was seen could be assumed to be real.
Cf lukeprog’s answer to my comment, indeed, much more people see movies—so when you generalize from fictional evidence, you’ll refer to movies more easily than to books, because you’ve more chance of the other knowing the movie.
But you know that your audience did read a book, it’s not more uncommon to call to a book (LOTR, Foundation or 1984 for example) than to movies. For myself, I tend to refer to books more than to movies when I know that people did read them, but more to movies when I don’t know my audience well.