Quantifying and applying modularity in the Afrikaans film industry (1994–2014) as a complex network

Abstract

Network theory has become an indispensable theoretical framework for the study of complex systems, and significant advances have been made within the community of physicists who study network topology. One problem, however, is that applications have been less extensive than theoretical and algorithmic developments, and in this article, the concept of modularity is discussed and applied to the Afrikaans film industry in order to investigate how modularity can inform us about the structure of this industry. By constructing a network of everyone involved in all the Afrikaans films released between 1994 and 2014, modularity is calculated, using the Blondel et al. algorithm. And it is illustrated that some directors tend to use similar groups of people in their films, but it is also indicated that other directors use more diverse sets of people. Suggestions are made as well for further research.