(Not) Going to the movies: a geospatial analysis of cinema markets in The Netherlands and Flanders (1950-1975) JuliaNoordegraafj.j.noordegraaf@uva.nlUniversityofAmsterdam,NetherlandsJolandaVisserj.a.t.visser@uva.nlUniversityofAmsterdam,NetherlandsJaapBoterjaap.boter@vu.nlVUUniversity,Amsterdam,NetherlandsDanielBiltereystdaniel.biltereyst@ughent.beGhentUniversity,Belgium PhilippeMeersphilippe.meers@uantwerpen.beUniversityofAntwerp,Belgium IvanKisjesi.kisjes@uva.nlUniversityofAmsterdam,Netherlands

Introduction Cinemaasanewcultural industryat thedawnof

thetwentiethcenturyhashadasignificantimpactonthe social, cultural and economic infrastructures ofmodernizingsocieties.Althoughcinemafromitsfirstemergencewaswidelyadopted,thepenetrationofcin-emasontheexhibitionmarket(numberofcinemas,at-tendance figures)has shown remarkabledifferencesbetweenEuropeancountries.Consideringthedensityofcinematheatresandattendancefiguresasamarkerformarketpenetration,inparticularTheNetherlandsand Belgium stand out: while Belgium abounded incinemasand filmattendance,cinemadensityandat-tendance in the Netherlands were traditionally low(BiltereystandMeers,2007).

Several scholars have attempted to explain these

differencesinmarketpenetration,yetnocomprehen-sive,satisfactoryexplanationhashithertobeenfound.ThelowcinemadensityandattendanceinTheNeth-erlandshasbeenexplained from theorganizationofsociety in various religious and ideological ‘pillars’(pillarization)that,untilat leastthe1970s,compart-mentalizedthesocial,cultural,economicandpoliticalspheresofsocietybutthatexcludedthecinemamar-ket, that operated ‘neutrally’ (Dibbets, 2006). How-ever, insimilarlycompartementalizedFlandersapil-larized cinema landscape was successfully created(BiltereystandMeers,2007).Othershavepointedoutthatclassmighthavebeenapossiblefactor(ThissenandVanderVelden, 2009). Finally, theorganizationandeconomicsoftheindustryhavebeenidentifiedasinfluencing thedistributionof cinema theatres (Dib-bets,2006;BoterandPafort-Overduin,2009).

Central question In the context of the research project CINEMAPS

theauthorsaimtomapcinemamarketsintheNether-landsandFlandersinthe1950s,1960sand1970sinacomparativestudy,combiningageospatialanalysisofcinemadensityinbothareaswithdataonpillarization,classandtheorganizationandeconomicsofindustry.By projecting these data onhistoricalmaps inQGIS,thegeographicaldistributionofdifferenttypesofcin-emascanbecomparedwithpatternsincinema-goingandlocalgovernmentalpoliciesinbothcountries.Thismulti-layered,internationalmapfunctionsasaheuris-tictooltoidentifythoseareasthatareinterestingforfurther, in-depth analysis of the factors that explainthe differences in market penetration. As such, theprojectwillprovideananswertothecorequestionofhowthedevelopmentofthecinema,asaspecificcul-turalindustry,interrelateswiththesocialandculturaldimensionsofmodernpublic life inTheNetherlandsandFlanders,inparticularpillarization,classandor-ganizationandeconomicsoftheindustry.Inthisshortpaperwediscussourapproachandmethodandpre-sentthefirstresults.

Method Inthepastdecade,theuseofGISmappingtechnol-

ogieshasprovenaproductive tool for analyzing thegeo-spatial dimensions of cinema culture (Horak,2016).Theuseofmappingiscoherentwithrecentspa-tial orientations in film-historical scholarship,which“focusesoncinemaassocialexperience,conditionedbyfactorssuchastransportationnetworks,ethnicity,

andsocialgroupaswellascinemaarchitecture,ticketprices,andthechangingpatternsofworkandleisure.”(Hallam and Roberts, 2014: 20) Such a comprehen-sive,spatialapproachcanhelptounderstandhowcin-emawasexperiencedinthepastandhowcinema-go-inginfluencedtheconstructionofsocialidentity.

TheuseofGIStechnologyallowsustostudythein-terrelationbetweencinemalocationandthesocialandeconomicdimensionsofcinemacultureatanunprec-edented scale. For the comparative research on TheNetherlandandFlanders,weadoptathree-tieredap-proach. First, we map all the cinemas according totheir typologies, distinguishing between permanenttheatres,theatreswithoccasionalscreeningsandtrav-ellingcinemas.Second,whileacknowledgingthefactthatcartelssuchas theNetherlandsCinemaAlliance(hereafter:NBB) extended a strong control over thecinemamarket(VanOort,2016),wealsoincludelocalgovernmentdataonthemap,toacknowledgethein-fluenceofpillarizedmunicipalpolicyonlocalcinemacultures.Finally,wemap(expected)audiencesinrela-tiontotheirpoliticalideology,religiousdenominationandincomeorclass.Inordertoaccountforthelimita-tionsofgeospatialtechnologiesinexplainingcomplexhumanculturalinteraction(Verhoevenetal.,2009),inthenextphaseofourresearchwewillusethesemapstoidentifycasestudiesforfurther,in-depthanalysis.

Mapping cinema density in its socio-economic context - first results

Thedatasetsused (censusdata, dataon religiousdenomination,localelectionresults,theCinemaCon-textandVerlichteStadcinemadatabases)partlyhadtobedigitized,andallofthemhadtobeharmonized.Theharmonizationprocessesconsistsofequalingthegranularityof comparisonbothnationally and inter-nationally (e.g., comparing municipalities and can-tons), the classification of categories (typologies ofcinemas, political parties, and religious denomina-tion), and solving discrepancies in periodization be-tween thedifferentdatasets. For somedatasetshar-monizationmodelsareavailable(e.g.,forreligiousori-entation),forotherstheyneedtobecreated.Thedataon cinema locations in Flanders are currently beinggeoreferenced and combined with the harmonizedcensusdataandothersocialdatasets.

Since the Dutch dataweremost complete, in thefirstphaseoftheprojectwefocusedonmappingcin-emadensityintheNetherlands.ThemapinFigure1showsthegeographicaldistributionofDutchcommer-cialcinemasinrelationtotheexpectedcinemaattend-ance.Ingeneral,wecanconcludethatthedistribution

of cinemas correlateswith the level of expected cin-ema attendance: many permanent theatres in areaswithahighexpectedattendance,mostlytravellingcin-emasinareaswithalowexpectedattendance.ThisisnotthecasefortheareainthemiddleandEastofthecountry (cities of Apeldoorn and Enschede), whichcoupleshighattendance to lowcinemadensity.Thisinvites further research into the particularities ofthoseareas.

Besidestheinfluenceoftheorganizationandeco-

nomicsof the industryon thedistributionofcinematheatresbytheNBB,thelocalmunicipalpolicieswereanothermajorinfluenceoncinemasandfilmscreen-ings. Municipalities issued or refused permits foropeningcinemas.Besides,theycouldprohibitcertainfilm titlesbyarguing that theypresenteda threat tolocalorder.Lastly,municipalitiescouldimpose(high)localtaxesoncinemascreenings.Inshort,thishithertoignoreddataprovidesinsightsontheinfluenceofpil-larizationonthedistributionofcinemas.

ThemapinFigure2showsacorrelationbetween

protestant municipalities (known for discouragingcinema attendance) and low cinema density, whilstCatholicmunicipalitiesshowahighernumberofcine-mas.Thissuggeststhatreligiousorientationdidinflu-encecinemamarketpenetration, inspiteof thesup-posedneutralizingroleoftheNBB.

Conclusions and future work The first geospatial analysisofDutch cinemacul-

ture yielded a number of preliminary conclusions.First,whenidentifyingthedataonDutchcinemaloca-tions,itturnedoutthatpreviousstudieshadignoredthelargenumberofcommercialcinemascreeningsinplacesfrequentedbytravellingcinemas(310in1949).Although these cinema screenings constitute only asmallpercentageofthetotalcinemaattendance(1%),thepresenceofthesetravellingcinemasdoesgiveriseto revisit the assumption that cinemadensity in theNetherlandswasextremelylow.Second,insomeareasweseeahighlevelofexpectedcinema-going,butveryfewcinematheatres - thiscanberesearched furtherby combining the analysiswith data on income andclassof theexpectedaudience,aswellas further in-depthcasestudyanalysis.Third,themappingofcin-

emadensityinrelationtoreligiousorientationques-tionedtheassumptionthatpillarizationwasnotrele-vantbecauseoftheneutralizingroleoftheNBB.Thesefindingsinviteamorefine-grainedstudyoflocalpoli-ciesaswellasfilmprogramming.InthenextphasewewillextendthisstudybycomparingtheDutchcinemamarkettotheBelgianoneandusethiscomparativere-search to identify case studies formore in-depth re-searchoflocalspecificitiesof(not)goingtothemov-ies.

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