From the Duke University press release:
Durham, N.C. — As Oscar season gets into full swing, new research indicates that what movie critics don’t say about a film appears to matter as much as what they do say.
The research, conducted by marketing professor Wagner Kamakura of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Suman Basuroy, assistant professor of marketing at Florida Atlantic University, and Peter Boatwright, associate professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, examines the meaning of silence by professional film critics.
It finds that many film critics, faced with far too many movies to write about, tend to avoid writing reviews of bad films that they’ve seen. At the same time, a few critics, faced with the same overwhelming choice, tend to avoid reviewing good movies that they’ve watched.
As a result, moviegoers might infer the likely opinions of their favorite reviewers, even when those critics don’t actually write about a movie. The study will appear in the June 2006 issue of the journal Quantitative Marketing & Economics.
Susan Wloszczyna, film reporter for USA Today, had this reaction to the study in a letter to Romenesko:
I’ve been out of the reviewing business for about four years now, so I was somewhat surprised to see my name included in this study. After reading the findings, I was more than surprised — I was confused … I guess critics should celebrate the fact that an esteemed university is even bothering to study their profession, but these findings barely rate one star.
Guys, we know being a marketing professor is boring — but please. Go back to teaching about the 4 P’s, OK?
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It makes sense to me that they would study older reviews rather than newer ones. So what if one of the reviewers no longer reviews films? How does that influence the accuracy of the study one iota? Answer: it doesn’t.
The reviewer in my local paper never seems to have anything good to say about movies, and doesn’t tend to review movies I would want to see. If this research is correct, it could explain this trend. So this research project has taught me something.
It’s true that there are some research projects with somewhat bizarre goals. But let’s be honest: not every research project is going to be tackling the cure for cancer head-on. Sometimes good ideas come from unexpected directions, which is why all research—even the quirky stuff—is valuable.
The bigger issue for the USA Today writer is that the study did not factor in that USA Today had two critics, one of whom reviewed the big releases and the other of whom reviewed the lesser releases. Hence, the study portrayed her as being less likely to write about well-reviewed films, when this had nothing to do with her as a critic and was more a function of her specific role at the time. (You can follow the link to her letter to get the whole story.)
MY issue is, What’s the relevance of this research to anything?
This is one of those “fun” projects that professors get permission to do from time to time. So, if it makes them happy, what the heck.
Movie reviewers review movies, those reviews to some degree impact public opinion of those movies. Movies, the last time I checked were a business and marketing is a study of business processes. Consumer opinion and consumer behavior (and things which influence the same) are certainly the privy of marketing. Makes sense to me, I’d have been a lot more confused if a Marketing department announced a study examining a cure for cancer! =)
OK, I give up. It’s a GREAT idea.