"In political science" - they assert this is science.

This is how they decide what to test:

"In formulating hypotheses, we draw from several theoretical traditions. The majority of our hypotheses flow from the nature of the content shared across dystopian narratives. We take each theoretical tradition in turn."

This appears to describe the difference between fact and fantasy:

"Scholars in the narrative persuasion tradition distinguish narrative from rhetorical persuasion, where the latter is characterized by advocacy of a position through arguments, reasoning, and evidence (e.g., newspaper editorials and political speeches). By contrast, narrative persuasion involves attitude change driven by cognitive and emotional engagement with a story."

This is experiment three:

"Finally, we test two key folk hypotheses, loosely connected to cultivation theory."

Science is hard:

"Yet an experimental manipulation involving an entire story narrative can be difficult to unpack and interpret."

Overall, I found this paper hard to read (to be fair, I'm not used to seeing this style of thing but I have put some effort in - I read it!) and rather vapid.