Leading by the Nodes: A Survey of Film Industry Network Analysis and Datasets

TL;DR

This survey reviews network analysis research in the film industry, highlighting data sources, key findings, and areas for future methodological and theoretical development in understanding social and business relationships.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive classification of film industry network studies, summarizing key insights and identifying gaps for future research in network methodologies.

Findings

Use of IMDb data in foundational studies

Identification of social and business relationship patterns

Highlighting areas needing further development

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of network analysis research on the film industry, aiming to evaluate its emergence as a field of study and identify potential areas for further research. Many foundational network studies made use of the abundant data from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to test network methodologies. This survey focuses more specifically on examining research that employs network analysis to evaluate the film industry itself, revealing the social and business relationships involved in film production, distribution, and consumption. The paper adopts a classification approach based on node type and summarizes the key contributions in relation to each. The review provides insights into the structure and interconnectedness of the field, highlighting clusters of debates and shedding light on the areas in need of further theoretical and methodological development. In addition, this survey contributes to understanding film industry network analysis and informs researchers interested in network methods within the film industry and related cultural sectors.