| Abstract: | National economies can be viewed as networks of interdependent relations among the firms, industries and sectors that make up the total economic system. Within this economic system. The communication industry plays a central role by providing message and media products and services, i.e. the linking and coordinating infrastructure.Some limited research has been conducted on the nature and importance of the communication industry in the total economic network of a nation. The study reported here, however, represents the first application of currently existing network analysis techniques to this problem on a large-scale basis. The data used for this study represent the interorganizational relationships among 365 West German firms, with a 1970-based stock value of $333,000 or more. Interorganizational linkages are a function of (1) direction of ownership, and (2) magnitude of ownership (percentage of stock owned weighted by the value of the owned firm).The data analysis reveals that there are a number of dominating industrial groups, including a communication industry. The inter-firm relationships of the communication industry have been mapped and measured. The analysis demonstrates that there is relatively little dominance in and widespread integration with other major economic clusters of the economy. These findings are considered as being preliminary since only publically reported data were available, i.e. privately controlled firms are not included in the analysis. A number of measures for connectedness and integrativeness are presented that suggest themselves in addition to the technique of network analysis per se as potential alternative measures. Media scholars as well as economists may want to utilize network analysis as a method to study various forms of economic concentration and ownership in national industries. |
