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Campbell Library

Radio, Television, Film

This guide contains links to information and resources on various aspects of radio, television, and film.

Finding Reviews and Primary Sources

Generally, reviews of media will be found in newspapers, entertainment magazines and journals, and websites devoted to film, television, and other entertainment.

Your strategy for finding reviews of theatrical performances starts with the time and location: where and when the performances that you are interested in will greatly effect your strategy. 

General Search Tips

  • Use whatever information you already know in your search. Include elements like
    • Film title
    • Director, screenwriter, performer
    • Critic's name
  • Use quotation marks and use AND between each element, such as: "Gone with the Wind" AND "Victor Fleming"

    The quotation marks let the database know that you need those words to appear together and in that order and the AND limits the results to articles containing both phrases.

  • Look for options in whatever tool you are searching to limit your search (often in the advanced search, if there is one) to:
    • a particular time period if you need reviews of a premiere, for example
    • a particular newspaper/publication
    • to just "Reviews" as an item type

You can use some of these strategies to search in Library Search. However, Library Search does not search the everything that the library has access to (for example, newspapers and Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive), and it can bring back too many things. Make sure to narrow your search results to "Reviews" (under "Resource Type").

Library Search

1. If the film or TV show is contemporary, start with Newspaper Search. This searches most of the current newspapers that the library subscribes to. You can also search by city in Journal Finder to see if we have access to newspapers for any individual city and what their date coverage is.

2. If the film or TV show is historical, use ProQuest Historical Newspapers. You can also search by city in Journal Finder to see if we have access to newspapers for any individual city and what their date coverage is.

Entertainment Industry Magazines and Journals can be found in the following databases:

While newspapers may employ full-time film and television critics who have made a career out of reviewing reviewing, many people are also reviewing entertainment online. Here is a selection of film and television websites and review aggregators.

Finding Criticism