What Causes the Virtual Agglomeration of Creative Industries?

Abstract

The agglomeration paradigm for creative industries has fundamentally changed under the digital economy, giving rise to a new form of virtual agglomeration within these industries. This study explores the causes of this virtual agglomeration. We collected online Chinese news texts related to the virtual agglomeration of the creative industry, used text mining to identify nine factors affecting its formation, and refined the internal and external factors for an analytical framework based on the PEST (political, economic, social, technological) and value-chain models. We then combined the relevant literature and the creative industry’s development practices, analyzed the mechanism of each driving factor, and constructed a driving-force model for the creative industry’s virtual agglomeration. The external driving factors were government policy planning, the digital economic environment, emerging consumer demand, and the application of innovative technology; the internal factors were the digitalization of cultural resources, flexible manufacturing, digital marketing and promotion, online interactive services, and virtual platform facilities. Each factor was found to contribute to virtual agglomeration through different internal mechanisms. This study’s findings have theoretical and practical value for cultivating the modes of virtual agglomeration within creative industries.