Looking at the mechanisms alone I think its pretty unlikely that film critics have not shifted over time. The standard film critic job in the 80s/90s was a loc

Looking at the mechanisms alone I think its pretty unlikely that film critics have not shifted over time. The standard film critic job in the 80s/90s was a local newspaper. That meant your audience was men/women of various ages and political beliefs who happened to live in the same area. If you were a successful critic you had to write something that appealed to all of them. This was actually a vital service that people used to determine if a movie was good. Now the typical movie critic is online and has an audience which probably has a singular viewpoint. This isn't bad - but makes it unlikely the critics with "everyman" sensibilities would do well. People who consume an above average amount of film reviews will have their views represented more. Chuck Klosterman (who was once a local newspaper movie reviewer and now writes to a certain type of audience online) has written about this.