Title: Scaling the Critics: Uncovering the Latent Dimensions of Movie Criticism with An Item Response Approach Authors: Michael Peress, Arthur Spirling Entrydate: 2008-07-04 11:22:51 Keywords: threshold utility model, film, ideal points Abstract: We study the critical opinions of expert movie reviewers as an item response problem. We develop a framework that models an individual's decision to approve or disapprove of an item. Using this framework, we are able to recover the locations of movies and ideal points of critics in the same multi-dimensional space. We demonstrate that a three dimensional model captures much of the variation in critical opinions. The first dimension signifies movie 'quality' while the other two connote the nature and subject matter of the films. We then demonstrate that the dimensions uncovered from our 'threshold utility model' are statistically significant predictors of a movie's success, and are particularly useful in predicting the success of `independent' films. http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=778 ********************************************************** Political Methodology E-Mail List Editors: Melanie Goodrich, <[log in to unmask]> Delia Bailey, <[log in to unmask]> ********************************************************** Send messages to [log in to unmask] To join the list, cancel your subscription, or modify your subscription settings visit: http://polmeth.wustl.edu/polmeth.php **********************************************************