Theatre criticism does not exist in a vacuum. It offers a response, and therefore needs something worth responding to. Without Osborne and Pinter, Kenneth Tynan would have been just another mid-20th-century critic admiring the French window sets.

But does it also work the other way? I think it must: I'm not convinced that it's possible for a strong theatre culture to thrive in a place or an area of work where there is little or no critical attention. You only have to look at the Cinderella sectors of British theatre to see what happens when there is an almost complete lack of critical focus. This, in any case, was a question under consideration at the stunning new Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff on Saturday in an afternoon called New Critics Day, organised by National Theatre Wales and Literature Wales. It's clearly something that has exercised NTW since its founding, and it's been trying to do something about the state of Welsh criticism through a scheme called New Critics (in which I've participated as a mentor) to help nurture new critical Welsh voices and give them the tools to respond not just to the NTW programme, but also to a broader range of work taking place in Wales. That in turn has spawned another scheme of Young Critics, many still in their teens and early 20s, based around Bridgend. Yet another initiative Wales Arts International has also just begun, aiming to expose critics – and not just theatre critics – to a broad range of work in different countries and cultures.

Saturday's symposium was a mixture of pessimism and possibility. In the opening session Professor Hazel Walford Davies declared "criticism in Wales in a state of sickness", but by the end of the afternoon an energetic groups of youngsters were considering the possibilities of setting up something along the lines of a Welsh version of The Arts Desk, the online arts reviews and features site which has achieved considerable authority in its short life.

In a way those two sessions summed up the challenges facing theatre criticism not just in Wales – where the situation is more acute because there is just one major paper, The Western Mail, whose theatre coverage repeatedly came in for complaint during the afternoon – but for elsewhere, too. On one hand, theatre criticism and arts coverage is under threat from economies made by newspapers who find that in the age of the internet their business models no longer work, and yet on the other hand, the web offers an opening to many more diverse voices commenting on theatre, and allows for the creation of a real dialogue between critics and theatremakers.

Finding a way through will be crucial. In the US, there have already been substantial job losses among critics working in print – some on the grounds that bloggers now fulfil that critical function. The best bloggers really do add to the rich mix, and are often able to do so in long-form reviews that allow for more depth than most newspaper criticism. But with so many bloggers seemingly wanting to cover the mainstream – or simply unable to fund a trip out of London or their local region – it remains crucial for a developing theatre culture that there is coverage of all types of theatre in all parts of the UK. Both NTW's John E McGrath and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru's Arwel Gruffydd both pointed to the fillip provided in Edinburgh this year, when a strong contingent of Welsh theatre including the Welsh-language Llwyth attracted considerable attention from both English and Scottish papers.

I suspect that NTW's mere presence, and the diversity of its programme, will not just give other Welsh theatremakers confidence, but also increase the critical noise in Wales. But it is wise that they have been proactive in considering the link between a thriving theatre culture and thriving critical culture – and it's something that other theatre organisations across the country should think about, too.