Critics, Ratings, and Society

Critics, Ratings, and Society is the first comprehensive study of the review as social institution. Its theories and data encompass reviews of all types of products—including the arts (e.g. theater, books, and music) and consumer products (e.g. cars, software, and appliances). According to Blank, the core problem of reviews is credibility. Concerns about credibility organize the formulation of reviews and audiences. The connoisseurial-procedural distinction describes the production of credibility and its assessment under different types of rating systems.

How do we make choices in an information-saturated world? Prior studies often assume that the problem is coping with the volume of information. They rarely ask how people judge the validity of new information. But we are all forced to depend on secondary sources that no one has the time or resources to verify. In Critics, Ratings, and Society Grant Blank confronts these issues through an investigation of independent evaluations and reviews. Reviews are widespread; they rank products ranging from books and films to automobiles and computers. They are important not just because they influence success and failure of products, they also make or break reputations and careers, and often play a critical role in stratification, power, and status. Reviews are shaped by the interaction of media editors, product makers, and consumers into credible cultural objects. These are processed into two types of rating systems: connoisseurial reviews that depend on the unique skills and experience of a single reviewer, a connoisseur; and procedural reviews that are based on the results of tests, well-defined procedures that allow reviewers to rank groups of similar products. Both rating systems construct hierarchies of products. Blank develops a new theory explaining the circumstances where economic concerns like price are overshadowed by review-constructed hierarchies. When this happens, culture constructs markets. He argues that review-constructed hierarchies are widespread as a consequence of inherent structural characteristics of contemporary capitalism and, as a result, reviews will become more important in the future.

Chapter 1 What Are Reviews?
Chapter 2 Toward a Theory of Credible Rating Systems
Chapter 3 Connoisseurial Reviews: Restaurants
Chapter 4 Procedural Reviews: Statistical Software
Chapter 5 The Production of Reviews
Chapter 6 Audiences, Credibility, and the Social Construction of Reviews
Chapter 7 Dining Is My Sport: Reception and Hierarchies
Chapter 8 Reviews and the Status Culture