The impact of peer-produced criticism on cultural evaluation: A multilevel analysis of discourse employment in online and offline film reviews

Abstract

Traditionally, media critics play a central role in the attribution of symbolic value to cultural products. This article studies empirically how the process of cultural evaluation is affected by the rise of peer-produced criticism online. More specifically, I examine how the discourse that critics employ to substantiate their aesthetic evaluations differs across media platforms and is affected by the institutionalization of critics, the symbolic dimensions of the reviewed film and the overall media attention paid to that film. Empirically, this study involves a multi-level analysis of 624 film reviews, which attends to media-level and film-level characteristics. The results reveal that the ascendance of peer-produced content not only challenges the hierarchical model of cultural evaluation, which remains in use, but adds a further dimension. At the same time, differences across media platforms (print, webzines, film blogs, amateur postings) reveal continuous rather than dichotomous patterns, thus emphasizing the blurring of media boundaries.