Critiquing the Critics: An Approach for the Comparative Evaluation of Critical Schemas

The emergence and persistence of a market requires a broadly accepted framework or schema for the evaluation of product offerings. In many markets, critics play an important role in the elaboration of these schemas. However, sociologists lack a systematic method for comparing critical schemas and consequently lack a systematic method for assessing how critics play their respective roles. In this paper, we propose a method for making such comparisons. This approach gives rise to a role typology, where schemas can be of four types: simple, complex, unpartitioned, and robust. This paper applies this method to the analysis of film reviews appearing in Variety and the New York Times between 1946 and 1982. Critiquing the Critics: An Approach for the Comparative Evaluation of Critical Schemas