Social Influence and Competition Among Critics

Abstract

Movie critics have long been of interest to scholars because of the role they play as information intermediaries in a common market for cultural goods. Movie reviews, particularly when aggregated, are often thought to reflect the underlying quality of the film. Nevertheless, it is likely that critics influence each other, which may lead to bias in their published assessments. These potential social influence and competitive effects among critics have not been systematically studied previously. In a sample of movie reviews for movies released in the United States between 2001 and 2011, we attempt to isolate the social influence and competitive effects by exploring how movie critic reviews systematically change within critic dyads when the critics release their reviews on the same day versus different days, varying the observability of reviews by the critics. Our analysis provides evidence of competitive influence among critics with critics deviating more when other critics? reviews are observables. Additionally, we find that the degree to which critics diverge increases when the consensus about a movie?s quality is high. These findings provide evidence that critics? reviews are biased by the reviews of other crtiics and that information intermediaries, such as movie critics, are susceptible to social influence and competitive effects.

Does Stylistic Similarity to Popular Competitors Affect Consumer Evaluations of Quality? Evidence from Online Movie Evaluations

“…Thus, we are able to leverage diverse findings from various disciplines in order to better understand pertinent issues related to a relatively new phenomenon: digital consumer evaluations. Likewise, research on the movie industry has led to more generalizable insights, and some notable prior studies have explored key issues in strategic management and organizational theory, such as the following: how strategic naming of movies mitigates the illegitimacy discount by directing audience attention to known characteristics (Zhao, Ishihara, & Lounsbury, 2013); the role of network ties in generating creative performances and explaining entry/exit rates of producers (Cattani, Ferriani, Negro, & Perretti, 2008;Ferriani, Corrado, & Boschetti, 2005); the effects of genre spanning on critic and audience perceptions (Hsu, 2006); professional and personal career patterns (Jensen & Kim, 2015;Zuckerman, Kim, Ukanwa, & Von Rittmann, 2003); how the presence of a movie star in a given movie impacts long-term film revenues (Wallace, Seigerman, & Holbrook, 1993); the relationship between ratings of different critics (Boor, 1992;Olson & Waguespack, 2018).…”

“…This is because professional critics often see movies before they are released to the general public. Since professional critic evaluations are designed to inform consumption decisions (Basuroy, Chatterjee, & Ravid, 2003), professional critics see and evaluate movies before their opening week of release, and many professional critics even see movies at different times from each other (Olson & Waguespack, 2018). Therefore, quality measures from professional critics can help overcome this empirical challenge.…”

“…It is the percentage of professional critics who gave a particular movie a favourable rating. As described in greater detail in the 'Empirical Strategy' section, this variable is important since professional critics are not systematically affected by the composition of competition in the same way as the layperson audienceprofessional critics generally evaluate movies prior to a movie's theatrical release in order to provide information to consumers (see also Basuroy et al, 2003;Eliashberg & Shugan, 1997;Olson & Waguespack, 2018;Wallentin, 2016). Therefore, by including this alternative assessment of quality, we can better isolate how the composition of competition affects consumer evaluations.…”