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Young Voices, New Qualities? Children Reviewers as Vernacular Reviewers of Cultural Products

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Rethinking Cultural Criticism

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Abstract

As a consequence of the decentralization and democratization of content production, even reviews have started being produced by ordinary citizens and consumers. In this context, young children present an entirely new group of reviewers that has been previously excluded in the previous, institutionalized traditions of reviewing. This chapter examines children, from toddlers to 12-year-olds, as producers and co-producers of online reviews in two vernacular reviewer-type categories, professional amateurs and consumer reviewers. These categories are embedded in a wider context of institutionalized and non-institutionalized reviewing and discussed in terms of the children’s roles in producing criticism. It is observed that children most typically occur as co-producers, supported by active parents, whose actions guide the reviewing to a large extent. In their reviewer roles, children are anchored in both aesthetic or non-profit and commercial contexts. It is suggested that the emergence of public child reviewers may, at least in theory, contribute to a situation where young voices that were previously ignored in discussions concerning cultural objects in the public sphere become better heard, supporting discourses and practices of more child-oriented citizenship and consumership.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, Kid Lit Reviews by Suzanne Morris (http://kid-lit-reviews.com) or Dino Dad Reviews by Andrew, “the Dino Dad,” reviewing dinosaur-themed books (http://dinodadreviews.com).

  2. 2.

    The script is available at https://github.com/BeTeK/YoutubeStats.

  3. 3.

    The script is available at https://github.com/BeTeK/InstagramUserScraper.

  4. 4.

    I use the words institutionalized and noninstitutionalized instead of (non)institutional to signal these gradual and constantly fluctuating shifts.

  5. 5.

    I choose not to disclose the authors’ identities here because these producers still have very few views and subscribers, and thus, cannot be considered public figures to the fullest even if their videos have been publicly shared.

  6. 6.

    According to YouTube statistics, the account was opened in 2006. The first review video, published in 2014, was, according to the metadata, recorded in 2011 when Iain was 3 years old (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOISd_wxKSg).

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  1. University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Maarit Jaakkola

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  1. Maarit Jaakkola
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Correspondence to Maarit Jaakkola .

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  1. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Nete Nørgaard Kristensen

  2. Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Unni From

  3. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Helle Kannik Haastrup

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Jaakkola, M. (2021). Young Voices, New Qualities? Children Reviewers as Vernacular Reviewers of Cultural Products. In: Kristensen, N.N., From, U., Haastrup, H.K. (eds) Rethinking Cultural Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7474-0_9

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