A Review and Analysis of the Concept of the Digital Content Industry in China

Although the digital content industry (DCI) has been booming in recent years, there is no generally accepted definition of the industry. On the basis of reviewing prior studies on the subject, this paper traces the origin of the concept, explains the meaning of the industry, summarizes why some commonly-seen definitions were concluded, looks at their similarities and differences, and defines the relationship between DCI with other similar concepts like content industry, creative industry, copyright industry, information industry and information service industry. The paper then proposes the authors’ understanding of DCI—an industrial cluster where cultural creation integrates with the information technology in various areas.