Monkey King, Naruto, and Mickey Mouse: Mapping the co-consumption network of animation protagonists in China

The present study explores the pattern of animation consumption in mainland China by applying the niche theory: when a cluster of animations is consumed together, they form a niche. Informed by several theoretical frameworks on cultural consumption, this study examines the co-consumption network formed by animation’s protagonists, such that an edge is established between two protagonists if they are consumed by the same audience. This network, including 169 nodes and 837 edges, was derived from a nationally representative survey implemented in mainland China in 2016. Social network analysis revealed that the important positions of the co-consumption network—those with high degree centrality and betweenness centrality—were overwhelmingly male protagonists in animations adapted from ancient Chinese fairy tales and produced domestically, along with Japanese animations and classic American animations. An exponential random graph model revealed that the year of production was the only mechanism of co-consumption, compared with other node-level characteristics.