Playing Nice, Being Mean, and the Space In Between: Book Critics and the Difficulties of Writing Bad Reviews

Chong, Phillipa K.

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198702504.003.0007

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…These quality judgements seem to be fundamentally instinctive or emotional and hence cannot be full objective (Chong, 2013). Reviewers may empathise with the reviewed authors, giving a tendency to tone down negative reviews (Chong, 2015). Professional reviewers may write to showcase their literary abilities or to promote their own perspective, which would be unethical (Xu & Xi, 2013).…”

Section: Book Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, they may be influenced by factors other than the quality of the work reviewed, such as publisher status and author actions ( Van Rees, 1987;Janssen, 1998). In order to reduce the chance of introducing biases, reviewers may avoid others' reviews of the same book, provide a rational explanation for their decision, and check their work for fairness (Chong, 2013(Chong, , 2015.…”

Section: Book Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reader and author gender and genre in Goodreads

Thelwall

2017

Journal of Librarianship and Information Science

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There are known gender differences in book preferences in terms of both genre and author gender but their extent and causes are not well understood. It is unclear whether reader preferences for author genders occur within any or all genres and whether readers evaluate books differently based on author genders within specific genres. This article exploits a major source of informal book reviews, the Goodreads.com website, to assess the influence of reader and author genders on book evaluations within genres. It uses a quantitative analysis of 201,560 books and their reviews, focusing on the top 50 user-specified genres. The results show strong gender differences in the ratings given by reviewers to books within genres, such as female reviewers rating contemporary romance more highly, with males preferring short stories. For most common book genres, reviewers give higher ratings to books authored by their own gender, confirming that gender bias is not confined to the literary elite. The main exception is the comic book, for which male reviewers prefer female authors, despite their scarcity. A word frequency analysis suggested that authors wrote, and reviewers valued, gendered aspects of books within a genre. For example, relationships and romance were disproportionately mentioned by women in mystery and fantasy novels. These results show that, perhaps for the first time, it is possible to get large scale evidence about the reception of books by typical readers, if they post reviews online.

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Section: Book Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Book Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reader and author gender and genre in Goodreads

Thelwall

2017

Journal of Librarianship and Information Science

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“…However, critics have been shown to take their role as journalists seriously even if it is an occasional activity (Chong, 2015). While some respondents might primarily write for online-only publications, after conducting interviews it became apparent that only one of them wrote exclusively for a personal blog.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Valuing subjectivity in journalism: Bias, emotions, and self-interest as tools in arts reporting

Chong

2017

Journalism

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This article examines the meanings and norms surrounding subjectivity across traditional and new forms of cultural journalism. While the ideal of objectivity is key to American journalism and its development as a profession, recent scholarship and new media developments have challenged the dominance of objectivity as a professional norm. This article begins with the understanding that subjectivity is an intractable part of knowing (and reporting on) the world around us to build our understanding of different modes of subjectivity and how these animate journalistic practices. Taking arts reporting, specifically reviewing, as a case study, the analysis draws on interviews with 40 book reviewers who write for major American newspapers, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and prominent blogs. Findings reveal how emotions, bias, and self-interest are salient -sometimes as vice and sometimes as virtue -across the workflow of critics writing for traditional print outlets and book blogs and that these differences can be conceptualized as different epistemic styles.

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“…She focuses in particular on the steps that writers take in their double role of authors and evaluators of fellow-peers in order to increase the legitimacy of their assessments and sustain their identity as impartial judges. In a follow-on study, she further exposes how a complex mix of competition and stewardship comes to bear on writers' evaluative practices as they endeavour to distance themselves from the subject matter in order "to push their judgment toward intersubjectivity […] and remove corrupting influences" from it (Chong, 2013: 278;Chong, 2015). It is this intersubjective quality -enabled by the pursuit of intellectual distance -that is foundational to the perceived legitimacy of evaluators' judgments and thus key to avoid the potential "stain" of peer opinions.…”

Section: Intellectual Distancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, our usage builds on the observation that cultural producers seek to gain authority in the cultural field by distancing themselves from self-serving interests (Shymko & Roulet, 2016). The idea that intellectual distance is driven, at least in part, by a search for legitimacy is especially echoed in Chong's (2013Chong's ( , 2015 analysis of the epistemic norms that peer reviewers in the literacy field uphold in order to buttress the perceived fairness of their judgments, and so dissipate potential concerns about their moral character. Chong's work, in turn, owes much intellectually to Lamont's (2009Lamont's ( , 2012 extensive evidence indicating that extra-cognitive considerations such us morals, emotions and feelings of self-validation as fair judges, whose judgment matter, are intrinsic to the evaluation process in peer-based evaluative settings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Friends, Gifts, and Cliques: Social Proximity and Recognition in Peer-Based Tournament Rituals

Aadland

Cattani

Ferriani

2019

AMJ

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Two main accounts of the effect of proximity between candidates competing for recognition and members of the evaluating audience in the underlying social structure can be extrapolated from extant literature on peer-based tournament rituals and cultural fields. Following a Bourdieusian tradition, one account-which we label self-reproduction-insists on the catalyzing effect of social proximity in shaping recognition along relational lines. Drawing from recent scholarship on social evaluation, a second account-which we label intellectual distance-suggests that social proximity deters recognition. We probe the influence of different articulations of social proximity (i.e., direct ties, cliquishness and reciprocity) on recognition by studying awarding decisions within the context of the Norwegian advertising industry. Interviews with key informants and econometric results suggest that, while selfreproduction tends to prevail over intellectual distance, these effects co-exist and their relative influence varies across levels of recognition. We gauge the relative saliency of the two accounts by using a mix-method approach. Important implications for research on social evaluation and recognition in peer-based tournament rituals are drawn.

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Playing Nice, Being Mean, and the Space In Between: Book Critics and the Difficulties of Writing Bad Reviews

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Reader and author gender and genre in Goodreads

Reader and author gender and genre in Goodreads

Valuing subjectivity in journalism: Bias, emotions, and self-interest as tools in arts reporting

Friends, Gifts, and Cliques: Social Proximity and Recognition in Peer-Based Tournament Rituals

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