Global Media Cities in Transnational Media Networks

Abstract

This paper considers an alternative dimension of world city network formation, driven by transnational media corporations rather than advanced producer services. Through an empirical analysis of the office networks of leading media corporations, the paper measures the integration of global media cities into the world city network in 2011. An interlocking network model is employed to determine the connectedness of cities within media networks, and a principal components analysis used to identify six media fields that represent the locational strategies of transnational media corporations. The results highlight the regionality of global corporate media strategies, which are firmly anchored in the major home markets of North America, Europe and Japan but reach out to other world regions through strategically positioned media cities.

World City Network Research at a Theoretical Impasse: On the Need toRe‐Establish Qualitative Approaches to Understanding Agency in World City Networks

“…The use of an increasingly varied ‘tool‐kit’ of quantitative analysis techniques is allowing for various nuances of the world city network to be revealed, including world regionalisation (see Taylor et al . ; Hoyler & Watson ); shifting hierarchical and regional tendencies (Liu et al . ); and world city cliques (Derudder & Taylor ).…”

“…). Although its main value continues to be in the measurement of world city networks constituted by advanced producer services firms, more recently the ILWCN model has also been successfully employed to measure alternative globalisations, for example those being driven by global media (Krätke & Taylor ; Hoyler & Watson ) and international sports federations (Roels et al . ).…”

A Sociology of Culture, Taste and Value

“…These corporations include Vivendi, News Corporation, Time Warner, Thomson Reuters and Viacom. In 2011, according to the Forbes list of top global media companies (based on sales, profits, assets and market value) eight of the top ten transnational media corporations had their base in the USA (Hoyler and Watson, 2011). If we examine two examples from this list, we can see that they own a number of media properties across sectors and that they control the means of production and distribution.…”

Cities As Networks within Networks of Cities: The Evolution of the City/Firm‐Duality in the World City Network, 2000–2010

“…), but also strategies that are more akin to the GaWC approach in that the analytical focus is on the geographies of corporate networks (e.g. Hoyler & Watson ; Krätke ; for overviews, see Liu & Derudder, ; Neal, ). The most common approach in this regard has been empirical research that focuses on headquarter‐subsidiary relations within the corporate structures of multinational corporations (MNCs), for example, the work of Alderson & Beckfield (), Wall & van der Knaap (), and Rozenblat & Pumain ().…”