Brickbats in Cyberspace

Matt Boothman
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Modern theatre criticism has problems, and those problems are generational in nature. That’s the one overriding conclusion with which I left the Royal Court after Brickbats in Cyberspace, in which a panel of theatre critics, bloggers and theatre practitioners convened to discuss the effect of the Internet, and specifically blogging, on modern theatre journalism.

There are very few professional theatre critics in the UK, by which I mean people that earn a living from theatre criticism alone. Of those few, the vast majority are of what most people like to call ‘a certain age’. I knew this before attending the discussion; as a young person working in the field of arts journalism, it has a direct effect on my life. What I hadn’t considered was the effect it has on the evolution of theatre journalism as a form.

The small cadre of professional critics was represented on the panel by Charles Spencer, lead critic for the Telegraph. From the off, Spencer declared himself openly hostile towards theatre bloggers. He accused the blogosphere of watering down critical discourse with a morass of uninformed opinion, and claimed that same morass would soon put him and his colleagues out of their jobs.

Spencer labelled his hostility “a generational problem”, and admitted that he simply didn’t like computers and technology. He also labelled himself “the last of the Luddites”; unfortunately, this epithet is not as accurate. His contemporaries are, if anything, older and more set in their ways than he is. Which means the most powerful portion of the critical establishment wants nothing to do with new media.

How is criticism supposed to evolve and find a place in the media as it exists today, if its biggest names think blogging is the enemy?

Not everyone in the industry is resistant to the change new media offers. Andrew Dickson, arts editor for the Guardian Online, was also a panellist. The Guardian have been quicker than their competitors to embrace online content. But the publication still follows the formats and processes of print journalism. Dickson commissions reviews, blog posts and podcasts or videos in the same way as his print counterparts.

No one has yet fully grasped the potential of new media. No one has fully exploited the combined power of online journalism, podcasting, social networking and mobile synchronisation. I still structure my reviews for London Theatre Blog the same way I would for a print publication. But if the critical community is held back by an older generation with a lot of clout and no love for web 2.0, by the time we get there technology will have moved ahead of us again.

In some ways perhaps it already has. Wired magazine declared the death of blogging in October, and the theatre industry still has yet to fully acknowledge its legitimacy. Whether or not the problem is generational, there is indisputably a problem: technology moves fast, and we’re being left behind.

Brickbats in Cyberspace took place at the Royal Court Theatre on Monday 1 December 2008. The event was braodcast live online and here is the full audio archive of the event.

The participants were as follows:

Chair:
Karen Fricker, critic for Variety magazine and lecturer in Theatre Criticism at Royal Holloway university

Panellists:
Andrew Dickson, arts editor for guardian.co.uk
Judith Dimant, producer for Complicite
Charles Spencer, lead critic for the Daily Telegraph
The West End Whingers, theatre bloggers

Andy Roberts

Last week I was wondering about the critics and social media and in particular why the newly opened London musical "Imagine This" press critics reviews are so diametrically opposed to the comments being left by members of the public who have seen the show since. It still leaves open the question as to whose opinion any potential ticket buyer might trust, if any.
Matt Boothman

@Theatre Breaks Blogger: It isn't a case of needing the incumbents' permission to move along, it's more that they are the highest profile, best respected critics in the industry and if they aren't embracing the technology - or are actively opposed to it - then blogging, tweeting, etc. are denied any mainstream legitimacy.

Perhaps we don't want mainstream legitimacy for these outlets, perhaps we want them to remain an underground, guerilla form of reviewing, but that would be a bit like (slightly strained simile incoming) discovering a spring and just using it to splash the grown-ups, instead of letting people drink the water or using it to power waterwheels and things.

Of course we're going to use these services to review things whether the incumbents like it or not, but until they get with the programme the public face of criticism is still outdated and technophobic, and so that's how criticism as a profession will continue to be viewed.
martine silber

As a former theatre critic at Le Monde, made redundant by the financial crisis in newspapers, I started blogging just to go on sharing and because it's a way of thanking the theater people who still send me invitations. I do enjoy it and hope (after a couple of monthes) that I'll get more and more readers as my newspaper (and they all do) is giving less and less space to culture...(films are still treated "normally").
It's not, a generational thing I think (I'm over 60) but more of an educational problem: if they don't teach journalists to use technology, how will they learn? So, they're scared.
Furthermore, the journalists blogs are not always easy to find when you read the paper on line.
And as the chied editors don't have their say on what is published on a blog, they do not like it .
Aussie critic

I agree there will be a generational shift shortly in reviewing (as in all forms of news media) that will embrace web 2.0 and beyond.

Interestingly though, while critics have been singled out as being the most expendable in a digital age, there's still a very real issue of authority.

This isn't to say "citizen" reviewing isn't legit; everyone knows word of mouth is the best (or most brutal) advertising there is. But as someone who writes theatre reviews for print (and loves to read the words of others for comparison), I feel people still want to hear from a learned, experienced source who does this kind of thing day in and day out as opposed to someone who simply vents about a movie or show they didn't like.

I use Facebook to give quick impressions of things I've seen (usually if I've loved or loathed them), but when people ask "what did you really think about show x?", I always refer to the print version, as this is the one I've slaved over and made sure conveys *all* my thoughts, important context etc.

It also comes back to the issue of circulation - even the most popular Australian blogger isn't going to reach more people than say a local paper or street press publication. Until the majority of media consumers reject papers outright, the dinosaur reviewers (and the products they write for) will still play a central and vital role in the reviewing process.
Kate Foy

Ah goodness indeed. Never was it truer ... everyone's a critic, or at least now with all this new fangled social networking apparatus available to anyone, then anyone has the potential to be a critic. Problem for entrenched points of view or status positions? Mmmmm, well yes I would think so.

Blogging isn't dead, and micro-blogging of the verbal (Twitter), audio (Utterli) or video (Seesmic/12 secs) variety is just another version of the old word of mouth review, and those of us in the business know how powerful word of mouth is.

Certainly the so-called 'heritage media' are lagging sadly behind if they do not see the value to their organisation of engaging with their readership ... whether it's online or in print. Many are rushing to catch up and their heritage fingerprints are still all over these attempts to get with it. That's OK too. We're all in the same cyber-stream and it's moving very quickly indeed.

As Oscar might have said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked, tweeted or chatted about. What's wrong with spreading the talk on theatre. Bring it on, say I.
Theatre Breaks Blogger

I can't see the problem. Why would it be necessary to get the permission of the dinosaurs in order for criticism and theatre blogging to evolve. If it is a generational thing then time will simply take its course.
Matt Boothman

He did acknowledge that bloggers were still going to blog whether he wanted them to or not. But he sees that as a sad fact he has to put up with, not as evidence of the power or growing prominence of the format.
Lindsay Price

Goodness. Charles Spencer should really let us know what he thinks. Bloggers are here to stay I think. And to lump all bloggers as uninformed seems a gross generalization.

If he's worried about losing his job, why doesn't he step into the technological generation? Telling the bloggers to go away won't do it. And if he won't, then perhaps he shouldn't do the job.