Research on the Cross‑regional Collaborative Mechanism of Regional‑Cultural Film, Television and Animation Industry in the Digital Era — A Case Study of Cultural IP Development of Jiangnan Water Towns and the Guangdong‑Hong Kong‑Macao Greater Bay Area

Abstract

The popularization of digital media and the integration of culture and tourism have turned regional culture into a core creative resource for film, television and animation IPs. However, most domestic regional cultural industries are plagued by practical difficulties including fragmented resources, insufficient capacity for independent development, inadequate cross‑regional coordination, and the risk of local cultural erosion in collaborative projects. Existing studies mostly focus on cultural‑creative development within a single region and lack comparative mechanism analyses between single‑region independent development and cross‑regional collaborative development. Taking typical film‑television and animation IP projects of Jiangnan Water Towns and the Guangdong‑Hong Kong‑Macao Greater Bay Area as dual cases, this paper adopts literature research, comparative case analysis and content analysis to build a three‑dimensional analytical framework of resources‑production‑communication, and compares operational disparities between different development modes in the two types of regions. The study finds that single‑region independent development within a single region can fully preserve local cultural traits yet suffers from weak IP communication constrained by capital, talent and distribution channels. Cross‑regional collaborative development enables complementarity in cultural materials, creative capacity and market channels, but brings problems such as homogenized cultural symbols and ambiguous allocation of rights and responsibilities. This paper identifies the internal paths for cross‑regional collaborative development to balance resource integration and regional cultural preservation, enriches theories on the coordination of digital cultural‑creative industries, and offers practical references for the joint development of film‑television and animation IPs across China.