Introduction

Transnational media corporations in global media cities: A geographical approach to understanding media power through corporate office networks

“…Headquartered in Shenzhen, Tencent is a Chinese multinational conglomerate holding company whose subsidiaries specialize in various internet-related services and products, entertainment, artificial intelligence and technology. The company has a near monopoly on messaging applications, with their WeChat platform having 500 million users in 2015, making it the largest messaging platform in the world (Hong, 2017). However, this distinct China-focussed strategy is not limited to Chinese new media firms.…”

“…Yet, crucially, our results also demonstrate the rise of Chinese new media firms that, while focussed predominantly on serving the domestic market, are also reaching out into the US with their global office networks. These firms, Hong (2017: 342) argues, represent a ‘parallel universe’ of profitable conglomerates that rival US firms thanks to China’s huge userbase. But as Yeo (2016) describes it, the extent to which US capital has been invested in China’s internet sector has led to interwoven economic interests between the two.…”

New methods for mapping media concentration: network analysis of joint ventures among firms

“…While annual revenues are only one indicator of a company’s size, they can provide some perspective on how the annual revenues of AT&T, which is a new entrant into the market for ‘traditional’ entertainment media, compare to other media firms in the industry Comcast or the Walt Disney Company. Furthermore, this type of visualization can also reveal the existing ties between so-called ‘media giants’ (Birkinbine et al, 2017) and other large telecommunications firms, like Verizon. Indeed, one of the other beneficial options within Gephi is the ability to highlight specific nodes of the network to reveal the specific interconnections that exist between a single node and its affiliates.…”

“…In this study, we track the networks that are generated by the alliances and collaborations of the Big Five 2 media conglomerates companies (Bagdikian, 2004; Birkinbine et al, 2017; Meehan, 2005) in the context of digital convergence and ongoing mergers around the globe. However, this context is set, to some degree, by public policies that either promote or inhibit such a scenario from existing.…”

A motivation-based typology of media companies’ cross-border engagement

“…Following these overviews, the majority of studies focus on large media companies venturing abroad as opportunities to grow and expand are limited within national home markets (Birkinbine et al, 2017; Gershon and Suri, 2004; Sjurts and Strube, 2014). Foreign markets are described as promising regarding ‘effects of scale and scope […], as well as the creation of synergies and the spreading of risk’ (Strube, 2010: 115).…”