Is the InterNet killing cultural expression? Seems not.

Is the InterNet killing the movies industry? Do we see progress in economics but at the same time is cultural expression decaying? Actually, it seems we are doing well:


Growth of US origin features, 2000-2016, as shows by queries to the IMDb. Fig 3.1 [1]

Check also Record Number of Films Produced [2].


Data from UNESCO database shows what the production of quality film was in previous years (I take documentaries as a measure of quality films) [3]. Number of documentary feature films in the UK at the same time the InterNet explodes and cheap cameras make their appearance:

2005    2
2007    9
2008    62
2009    58
2010    55
2011    56
2012    73
2013    44
2014    85
2015    79

To compare, these are the fictional feature films in the UK, according to the same DB:

2005    162
2007    112
2008    215
2009    248
2010    285
2011    239
2012    249
2013    197
2014    253
2015    213

Is greater production worse? Or better? A way to measure quality of all movies, regardless of genre, is Rotten Tomatoes [4]. These are the movies scoring 84+, 1998-2016 (Fig 3.4 [1]):





References
[1]  Joel Waldfogel's Digital Reinassance. Princeton: Princeton Univ Press, 2018.

[2]  UNESCO, Mar 31 2016, http://uis.unesco.org/en/news/record-number-films-produced

[3]  UNESCO data, accessed Jan 2018: data.uis.unesco.org

[4]  www.rottentomatoes.com/top