Thursday, January 6, 2022

Meritocratic and Topocratic Distribution of Content in Nollywood and the Nigerian Film Industry

Meritocratic and Topocratic Distribution of Content in Nollywood and the Nigerian Film Industry


A system is topocratic if the compensation and power available to an individual is determined primarily by her position in a network.
In the model, individuals produce and sell content, but also distribute the content produced by others when they belong to the shortest path connecting a buyer and a seller.

A system is said to be meritocratic if the compensation and power available to individuals is determined by their abilities and merits. 

In Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry, we have seen the monopoly of topocracy by certain powerful stakeholders, including the film distributors and exhibitors.
Filmmakers have pointed out that the film distributors and exhibitors have been giving the best showtimes at their cinemas to the movies they produced or co- produced which have become the highest grossing NIgerian movies since 2016 to date. They have also taken advantage of the acquisition of NIgerian movies by Netflix and Amazon by using the same topocratic model.

Only about 20 percent of the Nigerian movies accepted by NIgerian film distributors and exhibitors are based on meritocracy.

- By EKENYERENGOZI Michael Chima,
Publisher/Editor, 
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series,
247 Nigeria (@247nigeria) / Twitter





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