表題番号：2023C-564
日付：2024/04/06
研究課題The Rise of Digital Platforms and the Emergence of the New Media Documentary Film Industry in China
| 研究者所属（当時） | 資格 | 氏名 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| （代表者） | 国際学術院 大学院アジア太平洋研究科 | 教授 | 中嶋 聖雄 |
- 研究成果概要
- With the rise of digital platforms such as YouKu, Tencent Video, and Bilibili, a new sub-genre of documentary film called the “new media documentary” (NMD) (xinmeiti jilupian) has emerged in China. According to the Research Report on the Development of Documentary Film, the four major video streaming platforms of YouKu, Tencent Video, Bilibili, and iQIYI invested 1.1 billion yuan in documentary film production in 2018—an 83% increase from the previous year. NMD is often characterized by its highly diversified contents, relatively short length, and interactivity. In terms of contents, documentary films on “food,” which is one of the most popular, can be diversified into numerous subtopics—for example, those focusing on food in societies around the world, on breakfast in a particular Chinese region, or exclusively on hotpot. As for the length, most NMD is relatively short—30 minutes or even shorter in the case of the so-called “micro documentary film” (wei jilupian). In terms of interactivity, due to the interactive nature of digital platforms in general and the function of “barrage subtitling” (danmu) (Nakajima 2019) in particular, active audience participation is often said to characterize the viewing practices of the NMD. NMD is “new” not only in its content diversification, short length, and interactivity—which may be the result of its reliance on digital platforms for distribution and exhibition, but also in its mode of production squarely aiming at economic profit. This “market-oriented institutional logic” (Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury 2012) differs significantly from the earlier “non-profit logic” of the state-sponsored newsreel tradition and CCTV programs, as well as the more recent “independent logic” of the New Documentary Film Movement (Berry, Lu, and Rofel 2010). To disentangle the sources of the market logic in the newly emerging “platform economy” (Steinberg 2019) in China, I put to work the “six facets model” presented by the sociologist Richard Peterson (Peterson and Anand 2004): 1) technology (e.g., audience interface), 2) law and regulation (e.g., IPR and ethics of documentary film production including the protection of privacy and data gathering ethics), 3) industry structure (relations among key organizational participants), 4) organizational structure (of each key participating firms), 5) occupational career (e.g., directors/producers), and the 6) market (key consumers).