The Category Work of Custodians in Reviews

Centering on the discursive aspects of cultural intermediation in market shaping, we examine
the emotion-oriented rhetorical evaluations found in online reviews. We qualitatively
examine user reviews (N = 403) for the category of whisky e.g., scotch, bourbon etc. (99
different products). This study illuminates the passion for the acquisition of knowledge, with
aficionados discursively (re)producing category meanings through the display of this
knowledge. Our primary theoretical contribution is the identification of reviewers as a
passionate public, and theorize their efforts as a form of category custodianship that includes
positive as well as negative emotions. They draw from institutionalized category knowledge
to provide credibility to their member identity construction, while reproducing the market
category’s norms through their demonstrated expertise. We find four distinct practices of
category work in their reviews: (1) authenticating, (2) tutoring, (3) valorizing and (4)
matchmaking. We conceptualize ‘category custodians’ as an understudied form of cultural
market intermediary who perform a dual producer–consumer role as an outcome of their
passionate engagement. We contribute to the socio-cultural turn in marketing and public
relations scholarship and argue that a category lens offers a fruitful path to conduct future
research into salient issues for both academic and managerial implications.