World Media Economics and Management Conference 2016

This paper explicates a possibility to measure transnational media trade. In this way, it aims at quantifying an important facet of cross-border media communication, i.e., the different ways for media to cross borders. Importing and exporting media assets, here understood as both final products and means of production, is a specific mode of action media companies might resort to when entering foreign markets. Thus, a quantification of transnational media flows indicates the consequences of and, at the same time, any (pre)conditions for strategic organizational behavior. At the same time, trade relations in media – being both social institutions and economic entities – hint at economic and/or cultural proximity respectively distance between countries. Exchange relations might reveal the existence of transnational and/or transcultural markets. The latter cannot be detected but by focusing on multidirectional flows connecting (or separating) diverse countries, whereas previous studies have traced joint venture or direct investments to backtrack cross-border media trade, mostly based on case studies. Consequently, we seek the possibility to illuminate these multidirectional transactions. We propose a way to capture the volume of media trade between countries by outlining different economic data sources and eventually identifying suitable variables in official data, thereby providing helpful information on where to find applicable data for both scholars and practitioners. The advantages and limitations of using official economic figures for capturing cross-border media communication are elucidated in detail. This way, our analysis provides an important building block to understand when, how and why media communication transcends national and cultural borders.