Social Network Analysis On The Box Office Performance Of Movie Projects In China:An Empirical Study

China's film industry has developed rapidly from the beginning of the industrialization reform in 1993 and has reached remarkable achievements at the box office.The film industry is characterized by the project oriented network organization.This paper applies the method of social network analysis on the features of the company cooperation social network structure as well as the relationships between social capital and project performance(box office)in the movie projects,so as to provide a new perspective for the study of the movie box office.Based on the sample data of Chinese films which were successfully released in China during 2015-2016,the paper carries on the research from the following two aspects.The first research aspect:Analysis of the film company social network structure which based on the cooperation of projects.The paper first constructs the cooperation social network of the film companies.Then,UCINET and GEPHI are used to do analysis on the whole network structure,the network position of companies in all segments and the network positions of key companies.The second research aspect:Impact of social capital on the total box office of movie projects.First,on the basis of relevant literature,the paper constructs complete theoretical framework for the social capital of the structural dimension owned by every movie project in the film company social network and makes hypotheses about the impact factors of the box office.Then,paper chooses the factors from the traditional study of box office as the control variables and applies SPSS to do regression analysis on hypotheses.The result shows:(1)The social network of China's film company cooperation has a"chain" characteristic with low density and high connectivity.(2)The traditional film production and film distribution are still in the core position of the film industry in China.(3)The companies have an uneven distribution of positions in the network;The core of the network is still occupied by two state-owned enterprises,Huaxia Film Distribution Co.,Ltd.and China Film Group Corporation.At the same time,a large number of emerging Internet companies are developing rapidly.(4)In the regression of traditional influence factors of movie box,the paper verifies some significant factors that has been verified by previous relevant studies,including word-of-mouse,production cost and content familiarity;Some controversial factors have been ruled out,including main cast(actors),theater schedule,technical effect(3D).Also,some new conclusions are provided.(5)The final regression analysis shows that the higher the average level of structural autonomy in the film project is,the higher the film box office will be.At the same time,the higher the average level of the closeness centrality is,the higher the film box office will be.Also,the structural equivalence between companies,the number(size)of companies involved in the film project,and the history of cooperation between companies(density)have no significant impact on the movie box office.Finally,according to the industrial characteristics and conclusions of the research,the paper comes up with the following policy recommendations:(1)China's film related companies should choose appropriate cooperation strategies according to their own stage of development,and expand the cooperation relationships with the new companies actively.(2)Companies newly entering the film industry in China should actively seek cooperation with core enterprises.(3)The private companies in the film industry should strengthen the cooperation with the Chinese state-owned enterprises like Huaxia Film Distribution Co.,Ltd.and China Film Group Corporation.(4)Movie companies should increase Internet distribution.(5)Film production companies should focus on improving the quality of film content.(6)China's film related departments should strengthen the support for small companies.(7)China's film related departments should strengthen the support for marketing service companies.(8)China's film related departments should develop a unified film classification standard.