Review Culture and Audience Engagement: Survey Results

Previous entries on this blog have explored how critics and audiences have differed in their reactions to certain films - critics despised Bright (2017) but audiences responded far more positively, and critics showered praise on Blade Runner 2049 (2017) but this universal acclaim couldn't convince a large proportion of the general public to buy a movie ticket, resulting in a lacklustre box-office total. Numbers and viewing figures heavily indicate that there is a large and growing disparity between film reviewers and a general movie-going audience, so I conducted a survey entitled 'Review Culture and Audience Engagement' to gauge if audiences are affected by critical response to a film or whether review culture is becoming less relevant due to the rise of social media.

Out of a total of 25 responses, 21 of them were completed by people in the 16-24 age bracket. 3 responses were given by people in the 25-35 demographic whilst only 1 person in the 46-54 demographic completed the survey. This is predominantly because the survey mainly reached people of a similar age to myself. 15 females and 9 males participated in the survey, with one respondent preferring not to identify their sex.

I posed the question "How frequently do you go to the cinema to see a film?" and the graph below documents the responses.

The most popular answers proved to be "about once a month" and "few times a year", suggesting that very few participants could deem themselves to be fans of film as they attend the cinema too infrequently - they only go to the cinema if a film really compels them and are a mostly casual audience.

Question 4 of the survey asked: Are you active on social media platforms? If so, which ones, and do you share your thoughts on films you've recently watched on such platforms? 
Out of the 21 responses received by people in the 16-24 age bracket, 19 of them were active on some form of social media. However, very few responses claimed that they shared their opinions on films that they had recently watched on the social media that they engaged with. This aligns with the poll result that shows how often respondents attended the cinema and suggests that their level of interest and engagement with film (i.e. how often they go to the cinema) correlates with how they react to it afterwards. Two respondents (both were female) said that they only shared their thoughts on films they had seen if their reaction to a film was either extremely negative, or adversely, extremely positive:

One participant in the same age bracket claimed that they were active on Twitter, Facebook and Letterboxd (a social network for sharing your taste in film) and actively shared their thoughts on films they had watched on these platforms. This same participant also the only respondent to say that they attend the cinema once a week or more, implying that her involvement in social media and sharing her thoughts is a direct result of her investment in film.

All three respondents in the 25-35 demographic were active on social media but only one of them said that they share their thoughts on recently watched films on their accounts. Meanwhile, the sole participant in the 46-54 demographic was active on Facebook and Twitter but did not use it as a platform to share their opinions on film.

Question 5 asked: Does positive or negative social media response to a new film affect the likelihood of you seeing it? Give an explanation for your response. 
This question garnered a lot of interesting responses, with the overall consensus being that social media response (particularly negative) does inform the likelihood of whether or not the participants will go and watch a film. Answers to this question included:

• "Yes, if no one else liked it then I'm less likely to bother."
• "Yes - if someone slated it, I'd be turned off the idea of going."
• "If a lot of people are talking about how much they think a film sucks, I probably won't go and see it. On the other hand if there is a film that everyone likes (mostly superhero movies) I don't want to see it any more than before."
• "If the negative response is that the film has racist, homophobic or transphobic undertones I probably won't watch it." 
• "Definitely! If I see loads of good reviews I'm much more likely to want to go. But all the same, if there was a film I really wanted to see, but the general response as negative, I might still go regardless."
• "Yes - if a film is being slated or badly received I do not see the point in paying for a disappointing experience."
• "It can do - if I am undecided about whether to see a film - a positive review on social media could influence me to go. For example, after seeing a lot of great reviews about The Greatest Showman I decided that it could be worth the money and I may enjoy it. It turned out that I loved the film."

However, there were several participants who claimed that they remained completely unaffected by social media response to a film, with the majority of those participants being male. They all provided similar statements, professing that they don't care for others opinions and are not swayed by the feelings of their peers. 

Question 6 asked participants if they purchased any film related magazines such as Empire or Total Film, and if so, which ones. The response was, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly in favour of the answer "no" - only 4 participants out of the 25 that were surveyed said that they used or read film magazine, with only 2 of the 4 being regular readers and subscribers of Empire. The respondents do rely more heavily on average critic rating websites such as Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb rather than individual reviews:

Even though "No" was the majority answer, a high percentage of respondents claim to "Sometimes" refer to aggregated websites before attending a film in cinemas. This suggests that audiences are still more affected by the majority opinion rather than that of individual critics and is evident by the response to question 8: Do you hold certain reviewers or publications in higher esteem than others? If so, please specify and explain why.

Most answers simply said "no', with some asserting that they never read reviews and are instead swayed by social media and other audience members as they are more likely to agree with the opinions of the general public. Several cited Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Meteoritic as sites that they hold in high esteem but very few participants could name an individual reviewer. However, some respondents singled out certain reviewers and publications and gave reasons and explanations for their answer:

Meanwhile, question 9 and the responses it garnered were further indicative of the impression that the general movie going audience are more responsive to the opinion of social media and peers/friends than they are of professional critics. Question 9 asked: Can you provide an example of an incident where reviews have either persuaded or dissuaded you to watch a new film release? 

The handful of answers above all demonstrate that word-of-mouth and audience opinion is becoming perhaps the most influential and relevant means of persuading or dissuading someone to watch a film.  However, some results showed that audiences can still be influenced by critics; although respondents didn't single out individual reviewers or certain publications, they asserted that a general critical consensus have on occasion affected their decision to watch a film. One interesting response read:

Through a number of reviews detailed coverage and deconstruction of Marvel's Thor: Ragnarok, this participant was able to decide that the tone of the film was not something they would be interested in seeing and subsequently chose not to watch it, despite their initial excitement.

Finally, the last question in the survey was perhaps the most important one to determine how professional review culture is received amongst audiences: As an audience, do you think film critics are relevant and influential? Explain. 

Several answers posited that while film critics may still hold some influence and relevance over the way a film is marketed, their opinion is becoming less relevant to a general audience:

• "I think they are to a certain extent. Professional reviews seem to affect film posters and marketing, however I personally am more influenced by friends and peers in and person and on social media and their reviews of films rather since they are more likely to reflect my opinion than a snooty critic."
• "Not critics as in people who actually do it as a job, no. Their professional opinion is worth little more than the amateur on social media - I don't know if I know more than one person who could actually name a (alive) film critic."
• "As a whole, no. I meet more people of the opinion that each person has different tastes, so a film one person hates they might love. This being said, the general public doesn't put much stock into the opinions of film critics, choosing instead to give the film a chance and judge for themselves." 
• "I think that websites such as IMDb offering public ratings, film critics are becoming less relevant to the public audience." 
• "Yes, but increasingly less so. Or at least the formal film critics. I pay just as much attention to some of the critics on Youtube, and to what people I follow on Tumblr have made of a film, as I do those in newspapers."

Although there were some exceptions in the survey responses (saying that critics do still hold value to audiences), the overall conclusion is that they are becoming less and less effective. As social media has given power to the people and a platform for thoughts to be readily output, those professionally paid to exercise their voice and opinion are becoming less pertinent to an audience who can simply turn to their friend or peers for advice on what film to watch. Perhaps critics are out of touch with what audiences want from their trip to the cinema, and maybe audiences should trust the professionals. But the results from the survey have confirmed the accuracy of the popular saying - "everyone's a critic."