From Reviewing the Movies: Audiences vs. Critics by Catherine Rampell.
It is a fair and interesting question or set of questions. Do audiences and critics assess movies in different ways? If so, in what ways do they differ? Which views, audience or critics, provide a better forecast of future performance? These questions apply to art, sports, books, etc. There are answers to some of these questions. The general informed public and specialists do tend to review things differently. General informed public tend to factor in more context and larger macro considerations than do specialists. General informed public tend to be better forecasters than are specialists. Nate Silver covers a lot of this in his The Signal and The Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't
What is notable is that Rampell asks a legitimate question and has an idea on how to answer the question. Her error is to use information that is available (Rotten Tomatoes Database) rather than information that is needed. There is a fairly detailed critique of her analysis in the comments. The article serves as an example of Selection Bias (the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the method of collecting samples) and Information Bias (the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action), and possible Mere Exposure Bias (the tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them).
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