MASSAGING THE MEDIUM

posted by James Reel

    This week, Douglas McLennan’s Artsjournal.com hosted a debate among several arts reviewers: Critical Edge: Critics in an Online Age. It looked promising, given the themes McLennan outlined on the first day:

    With a growing flood of opinions available to all, some suggest that the influence of the traditional critic is waning, that the opinions of the many will drown out the power of the few. But in a time when access to information and entertainment and art seems to be growing exponentially, more than ever we need ways to to sort through the mass and get at the "good" stuff. The question is how? Where is the critical authority to come from?
    Some suggest that new social networking software that ranks community preferences and elevates some opinions over others will supplant the formerly powerful traditional critics. So what is to be the new critical currency? Stripped of traditional legitimacies, how will the most interesting critical voices be heard and have influence?

    But almost immediately, the discussion bogged down in an argument about Blogging: Good or Bad? McLennan tried to get things back on track with some good questions:

    Many of the functions that have traditionally been the domain of the critic are now being done in other, more efficient ways. Whether or not you-the-consumer still want to have a relationship with an actual critic person depends more and more on the specific person. With the rising glut of culture that now engulfs us, there is more need than ever for critics/curators to help us wade through it all. But what is the essential thing that an arts journalist needs to bring to the table? How does an arts journalist accumulate the critical capital to make an impact?

    These are important issues, but most of the participants took the easy way out and resorted to posturing about blogging, which is already a stale subject. It’s here, and there’s nothing new to say about it. Every time you put bloggers and print journalists in the same room (or the same corner of cyberspace), you know what will happen: An anti-blog defender of Old Media will come off like a geezer a century ago scandalized by the development of engine-powered carriages, shaking his fist and shouting “Get a horse!” Then a blogger will counter with Kruschevian shoe-pounding on the podium and cry, “We will bury you!” Finally, a conciliatory bipartisan group will try to gather everyone ’round the campfire for a kumbaya moment of unity.
    Well, contrary to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is not the message, unless the message is devoid of content, like a blank e-mail. Who cares whether critics are employed by newspapers or run their own blogs? All that matters is the criticism itself: Is it supported by knowledge, untainted by hidden agendas, expressed clearly and artfully, and truly relevant to the artistic experience?
    Don’t worry about bloggers; it’s hard enough to find criticism that meets those criteria in the daily paper.