The impact of new forms of digital communication on press-based TV critics and the emergence of new forms of critical debate

Abstract

This article explores the question of whether we are seeing the end of newspaper-based TV critics as we know them and, if so, what might be taking their place? The first part of this work explores the role of the (TV) critic and raises the question of what might be missed if they disappear. The second part of the article analyses the impact of new forms of digital communication on newspaper-based TV critics and the emergence of new forms of critical debate about television. The article concludes by arguing that the critic still has a role, but a new balance is appearing, one in which the public will play a more important part. ‘The TV critic is dead. Long live the TV critic!’

Keywords

Criticism critics television blogs television criticism television critics

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allsopp

(2008) The bloggers. Observer, 13 July. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/jul/13/art.comedy1 (accessed 14 November 2014).

Arnold

(2015) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell recap: Episode seven – The finale. The Guardian, 28 June. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/jun/28/jonathan-strange-mr-norrell-recap-episode-seven-finale (accessed 30 June 2015).

Corner

(2013) ‘Criticism’: Notes on the circulation of cultural judgement. JOMEC Journal 4: 1–12. Available at: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/jomecjournal/

Curran

(2012) Reinterpreting the Internet. In: Curran

Fenton

Freedman

(eds) Misunderstanding the Internet. London: Routledge, pp. 1–33.

Daily Telegraph (2014) Downton Abbey, review: s5, ep 4: ‘brazen plot recycling’. Daily Telegraph, 12 October. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/downton-abbey/11154952/Downton-Abbey-review-s5-ep-4-brazen-plot-recycling.html (accessed 20 November 2014).

Donaghy

(2014) The Fall BBC2 series 2 episode 6 review | Orangemen are not the only fruit. 18 December. Available at: http://aerialtelly.co.uk/the-fall-bbc2-series-2-episode-6-review.php (accessed 2 July 2015).

Dowling

(2015) There’s surely a funny way to depict waterboarding: The Brink didn’t find it. The Guardian, 30 June. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jun/30/last-nights-tv-brink-truth-about-superfoods (accessed 4 July 2015).

Eagleton

(1987) The Function of Criticism: From the Spectator to Post-Structuralism. London: Verso.

Eichler

(1981) Critical look at the TV critics. Television 19(1): 16–17.

10.

Ellis

(2008) TV pages. In: Franklin

(ed.) Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism. London: Routledge, pp. 174–182.

11.

Fiske

(1994) Television Culture. London: Routledge.

12.

Flett

(2009) Can I finally turn the telly off now? Observer, 20 December. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/dec/20/kathryn-flett-10-years-television (accessed 29 May 2015).

13.

Franklin

(2008) Newspapers: Trends and developments. In: Franklin

(ed.) Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism. London: Routledge, pp. 1–36.

14.

Gabler

(2011) Everyone’s a critic now. The Guardian, 30 January. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/jan/30/critics-franzen-freedom-social-network (accessed 30 June 2015).

15.

Giddings

(1994) The amateur’s point of view. The Guardian, 11 April, p. 16.

16.

Gillespie

(2012) The art of criticism in the age of interactive technology: Critics, participatory culture, and the avant-garde. International Journal of Communication 6: 56–75.

17.

Graham

(2014) TV critics are the influential ones, not Twitter users. Radio Time, 20 June. Available at: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-06-20/tv-critics-are-the-influential-ones-not-twitter-users (accessed 10 December 2014).

18.

Grant

(2013) The Critical Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

19.

Hall

(2008) Online editions: Newspapers and the ‘new’ arts. In: Franklin

(ed.) Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism. London: Routledge, pp. 215–223.

20.

Himmelstein

(1981) On the Small Screen: New Approaches in Television and Video Criticism. New York: Praeger.

21.

Jefferies

(2014) Why twitter is the new TV reviewer? Radio Times, 19 June. Available at: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-06-19/why-twitter-is-the-new-tv-reviewer (accessed 10 December 2014).

22.

Jenkins

(1992) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge.

23.

Lotz

(2008) On ‘Television Criticism’: The pursuit of the critical examination of a popular art. Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 6(1): 20–36.

24.

McArthur

(1980) Point of review: Television criticism in the press. Screen Education 35: 59–61.

25.

McDonald

(2007) The Death of the Critic. London: Continuum.

26.

Meyer

(2009) The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.

27.

Moran

(2013) Armchair Nation: An Intimate History of Britain in Front of the TV. London: Profile books.

28.

Pierson

(2015) About. The TV Critic. Available at: www.thetvcritic.org (accessed 1 June 2015).

29.

Poole

(1984) The cult of the generalist: British television criticism 1936-83. Screen 25: 41–61.

30.

Poole

(1994) Lowering the box. The Guardian, 4 April, p. 12.

31.

Rayner

(2008) Is it curtains for critics? The Guardian, 13 July, pp. 4–7.

32.

Rixon

(2006) American Television on British Screens: A Story of Cultural Interaction. London: Palgrave.

33.

Rixon

(2011) TV Critics and Popular Culture: A History of British Television Criticism. London: I.B.Tauris.

34.

Rixon

(2013) Re-evaluating the role of television criticism in the British Press. Journalism 14(3): 388–400.

35.

Rixon

(2014) Popular newspaper discourse: The case of UK TV criticism from the 1950s to the 1980s. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 15(2): 314–330.

36.

Sawyer

(2011) Is the age of the critic over? Observer, 30 January. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/jan/30/is-the-age-of-the-critic-over (accessed 29 May 2015).

37.

Scott

(1975) The role of the ‘Listener’. The Listener 94(2424): 360.

38.

Siegel

(2007) Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television. New York: Basic Books.

39.

Van der Wurff

(2008) The impact of the Internet on media content. In: Kung

Picard

Towse

(eds) The Internet and the Mass Media. London: SAGE, pp. 65-85.

40.

Van Leuven

Deprez

Raeymaeckers

(2014) Towards more balanced news access? A study on the impact of cost-cutting and Web 2.0 on the mediated public sphere. Journalism 15(7): 850–867.

41.

Williams

(2010) Read All about It! A History of the British Newspaper. London: Routledge.

42.

Wollaston

(2014) Homeland season three: Back with renewed purpose and a bang. The Guardian, 13 October. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/oct/13/homeland-season-three-review-back-with-renewed-purpose-and-a-bang#start-of-comments (accessed 5 June 2015).

43.

http://aerialtelly.co.uk/ (accessed 02 July 2015).

44.

http://www.trekcore.com/ (accessed 22 November 2014).

45.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/downton-abbey/11154952/Downton-Abbey-review-s5-ep-4-brazen-plot-recycling.html (accessed 20 November 2014).

46.

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog (accessed 14 November 2014).

47.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/jun/28/jonathan-strange-mr-norrell-recap-episode-seven-finale (accessed 30 June 2015).

48.

http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses/reinventing-the-critic-ben-walters-writing-course (accessed 19 November 2014).

49.

http://www.thetvcritic.org/ (accessed 30 November 2014).

50.

http://www.tv.com/shows/marvels-agents-of-shield/reviews/ (accessed 22 November 2014).

51.

http://www.tv.com (accessed 21 November 2014).

52.

http://www.tvgohome.com/ (accessed 15 November 2014).