The past decade has seen a flourishing of amateur literary criticism on websites like Amazon and Goodreads. Anna Frey Taylor and Michael Cathcart take a look at how the internet is changing the culture of literary criticism.

'A good deal of reviewing, especially of novels, might well be done by amateurs ... whose ideas about [the novel] would surely be worth more than those of a bored professional,' wrote George Orwell in 1946. With this simple remark, Orwell anticipated the rise of the amateur literary critic.

Each day on blogs and book websites worldwide, thousands of amateur book reviewers share their opinions on the books they are reading. It is a phenomenon that has been closely examined by Dr Simone Murray, a senior lecturer in literary studies at Monash University. Murray recently authored the paper Everyone’s a Critic: Mass Amateur Book Reviewing in the Digital Literary Sphere.

A good deal of reviewing, especially of novels, might well be done by amateurs ... whose ideas about [the novel] would surely be worth more than those of a bored professional. George Orwell

'Today we have an internet forum where anyone with an opinion about a book can start blogging about it for a global audience,' says Murray. 'In some ways, we seem to have reached the nirvana that Orwell was saying would be great, if only it were technologically possible.'

For Murray, amateur book reviewing technologies like Goodreads have democratised the practice of literary criticism. Where criticism was once the exclusive domain of the learned professional, book review websites have enabled everyday readers to take part in the critical conversation.

'We've got away from the situation of an old-style enshrined critic who, like the voice of God, would declare whether a book was any good or not,' says Murray. 'We now have a situation where there can be a whole plethora of voices ... and a whole range of views on a particular book.'

Whether or not the diversity of opinion in amateur criticism is valuable depends on your perspective. For Murray, this criticism serves as an important adjunct to newspaper and magazine reviewing. 'At the top end of the amateur content online, the quality is excellent,' she says. 'It is at least as good, and in some cases better, than what we get in broadsheet newspaper reviewing in Australia.'

'That’s really significant at a time when newspaper revenue is falling through the floor ... and arts and culture supplements are always being squeezed, so that we get more and more 100 word capsule reviews in newspapers that can’t do justice to the content of a book.'

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The rise of the amateur critic has also seen changes in the nature of contemporary criticism. Murray has detected a new mode of online critique that privileges the emotional responses of the reader. 'Professional literary criticism often downplays the emotional response readers have to a novel. Yet emotion is front and centre in a lot of these amateur reviews ... that's something to really enjoy about reading them.'

One of the major issues with online amateur criticism is that it is often written under the veil of anonymity. So-called 'sock puppet' reviews, in which writers review their own books under a pseudonym, plague Amazon. One high profile case in 2010 involved well-known historian Orlando Figes, who was caught using a pseudonym to write glowing reviews of his own books and attack the work of his rivals.

Can everyone be a critic? Monday 16 June 2014 Listen to Books and Arts Daily to find out what the democratisation of book reviewing means for literary culture. More This [series episode segment] has image,

A further concern relates to user privacy. According to Murray, much of the content posted on review websites becomes data that corporations can then sell to third parties for advertising purposes. 'When you put up all the members of your book club, their preferences and what is in their library ... that is interesting data that becomes commercially valuable to sell on to marketers or publicists.’

In the new world of amateur book reviewing, everyone is encouraged to have an opinion. While amateur criticism can be an excellent way to access and share literary comment, It's important to remember host sites are monitoring even amateur critics' everyday opinions. Murray’s response harks back to Orwell, but this time from Nineteen Eighty-Four: ‘You’re collecting the books, but your response to those books is also being collected.'

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