Stéphane Debenedetti

“The taste of others” : divergences in tastes between professional experts and ordinary consumers of movies in France

The omnipresence of professional experts in the debates and marketing strategies around movies raises the question of the proximity of their judgments with those of the “ordinary consumer”. Two theoretical perspectives compete on this matter: Divergence or convergence of tastes. Based on a sample of 622 popular films released between 2005 and 2009 in France, this research confirms the divergence of tastes: Professional experts grant no special value to movies that ordinary consumers prefer. However, our results also suggest that publication on the Internet of “hybrid” tastes (those of web users and media critics) builds an artificial form of convergence which can be useful for the markets actors.