AoIR Abstract

Author(s): George Barnett, Seung Joon Jun

Title: "AN EXAMINATION OF THE DETERMINANTS OF INTERNATIONAL INTERNET STRUCTURE "

*** AN EXAMINATION OF THE DETERMINANTS OF INTERNATIONAL INTERNET STRUCTURE ABSTRACT This paper examines the underlying antecedent factors that determine the patterns of bi-national Internet flows. When viewed from the perspective of the entire global community these connections represent the structure of international Internet. These factors include, physical geography, the Internet’s infrastructure, language, and factors from the national development literature including economics (GDP per capita, international trade), education (literacy, access to education) urbanization, domestic media infrastructure (telephone and television) and usage (television, telephone and personal computers) and level of democratization. Prior research indicates that the structure of the Internet is significantly related to international telephone flows, air traffic, international trade, science and student flow networks at earlier points in time, as well as language and asynchrony, but not physical geography (Barnett, Chon & Rosen, 2001). Also, the structure of international Internet flows is moderately related to its physical infrastructure (Barnett & Park, 2003). The current research also examines the role of culture as an organizing mechanism of the Internet flows. The results from prior literature indicated that national culture is significantly related to the centrality and the overall structure of the network (Barnett & Sung, 2003). The structure of the Internet is operationalized through communication network analysis based upon the number of inter-domain hyper-links embedded in web-sites of 47 nations. The data were gathered using Alta Vista, in January and March 2003 (Barnett & Park, 2003). The antecedent factors were operationalized using secondary data from a number of sources. National culture was operationalized using the four dimensions proposed by Hofstede (1980) including collectivism vs. individualism (IDV), femininity vs. masculinity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance (UAI) and power distance (PDI). The initial results indicate that many the individual antecedent factors are significantly related to the structure of the Internet. Generally, these were indicators of the domestic telecommunication and media infrastructure. It is not related to the physical distance between nations or a country’s political freedom. Among the developmental indicators GDP, international trade and the media variables were significantly related to a nation’s position in the Internet network. However, literacy and urbanization were not related to a country’s position. As for the cultural indicators, only individualism was significant. When examined in combination, using multiple regression, only international trade and the number of Internet hosts were significant predictors of the structure of international Internet flows, accounting for between 63 and 86% of variance in a nation’s position depending on the measure of information flow. Culture (individualism) was a significant predictor of only one measure of structure, the number of hyperlinks to other nations. The implications of the findings for the growth of the Internet are discussed, as are the shortcomings of the research, as well as, the directions for future research.

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	*Author(s):* George Barnett, Seung Joon Jun
	*Title:* "AN EXAMINATION OF THE DETERMINANTS OF INTERNATIONAL INTERNET STRUCTURE "

***	AN EXAMINATION OF THE DETERMINANTS OF INTERNATIONAL INTERNET STRUCTURE ABSTRACT This paper examines the underlying antecedent factors that determine the patterns of bi-national Internet flows. When viewed from the perspective of the entire global community these connections represent the structure of international Internet. These factors include, physical geography, the Internet’s infrastructure, language, and factors from the national development literature including economics (GDP per capita, international trade), education (literacy, access to education) urbanization, domestic media infrastructure (telephone and television) and usage (television, telephone and personal computers) and level of democratization. Prior research indicates that the structure of the Internet is significantly related to international telephone flows, air traffic, international trade, science and student flow networks at earlier points in time, as well as language and asynchrony, but not physical geography (Barnett, Chon & Rosen, 2001). Also, the structure of international Internet flows is moderately related to its physical infrastructure (Barnett & Park, 2003). The current research also examines the role of culture as an organizing mechanism of the Internet flows. The results from prior literature indicated that national culture is significantly related to the centrality and the overall structure of the network (Barnett & Sung, 2003). The structure of the Internet is operationalized through communication network analysis based upon the number of inter-domain hyper-links embedded in web-sites of 47 nations. The data were gathered using Alta Vista, in January and March 2003 (Barnett & Park, 2003). The antecedent factors were operationalized using secondary data from a number of sources. National culture was operationalized using the four dimensions proposed by Hofstede (1980) including collectivism vs. individualism (IDV), femininity vs. masculinity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance (UAI) and power distance (PDI). The initial results indicate that many the individual antecedent factors are significantly related to the structure of the Internet. Generally, these were indicators of the domestic telecommunication and media infrastructure. It is not related to the physical distance between nations or a country’s political freedom. Among the developmental indicators GDP, international trade and the media variables were significantly related to a nation’s position in the Internet network. However, literacy and urbanization were not related to a country’s position. As for the cultural indicators, only individualism was significant. When examined in combination, using multiple regression, only international trade and the number of Internet hosts were significant predictors of the structure of international Internet flows, accounting for between 63 and 86% of variance in a nation’s position depending on the measure of information flow. Culture (individualism) was a significant predictor of only one measure of structure, the number of hyperlinks to other nations. The implications of the findings for the growth of the Internet are discussed, as are the shortcomings of the research, as well as, the directions for future research.