• Geographical Research
  • Vol. 39, Issue 6, 1329 (2020)
Hu WEN*, Qiangguo ZHANG, and Xu SU
Author Affiliations
  • School of Economics & Trade, Hunan University, Changsha 410079, China
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    DOI: 10.11821/dlyj020190525 Cite this Article
    Hu WEN, Qiangguo ZHANG, Xu SU. The structure differences between the production network of traditional television drama and internet drama influenced by the internet[J]. Geographical Research, 2020, 39(6): 1329 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Internet has exerted a tremendous influence on the spatial distribution and organization of the Chinese television industry. In this paper, 318 of the most representative works in each section, including internet and television dramas, are selected as research samples from 2016 to 2017. By virtue of both the relationship data and geographic information of enterprise cooperation in three value chain links (teleplay production, shooting and post-production), we construct the internet drama production network (IDPN) and the television drama production network (TDPN) in two dimensions of enterprise and city, respectively. Then, the structural differences of the two networks are mainly analyzed by using social network analysis. After that we reveal the impact of the Internet on the spatial distribution and organizational operation of the Chinese television industry. The research result can be shown as follows. (1) From the perspective of spatial distribution, enterprises producing Internet dramas are more concentrated in space than those producing television dramas, especially in cities of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and Yangtze River Delta. (2) Compared with the TDPN, the core city nodes and strong ties between cities in the IDPN are focused more in eastern China. Concretely, in the former network, only 6 of the top 10 core city nodes in centrality degree are located in the eastern coastal area, that is, only 5 pairs are involved in the tie strength linking Beijing and the other 5 eastern cities, accounting for a small portion (25.92%) of the total tie strength. However, in the latter network, the corresponding data cover 9 nodes located in the eastern cities, namely 8 pairs (Beijing and the other 8 eastern cities) with a percentage of 51.20% of the total tie strength. (1) From the perspective of organizational structure, the IDPN has less enterprise nodes (1002) and non-repetitive connections (4189) compared with the TDPN (1530 and 14087), and their network densities are 0.84% and 1.20%, respectively. It implies that compared with the IDPN, the TDPN has smaller scale but more flexible inter-firm division of labor. (2) The centralization of the IDPN (2.70%) is lower than that of the TDPN (3.47%). In addition, the ownership attributes of the core enterprise nodes are different. The IDPN presents a pattern of tripartite confrontation among three private internet film and television enterprises, while the state-owned CCTV is in a dominant situation in the TDPN. (3) Compared with the TDPN, small business groups with the strongest cohesion in the IDPN are more geographically open and institutionally inclusive. Contrary to the conclusion that the internet will bring about "the death of distance" and "the end of geography", our results support the academic viewpoint that the internet will reshape the value chain of cultural and creative industries and further impact the power pattern among enterprises.
    Hu WEN, Qiangguo ZHANG, Xu SU. The structure differences between the production network of traditional television drama and internet drama influenced by the internet[J]. Geographical Research, 2020, 39(6): 1329
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