DHL Global Connectedness Index 2014

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50 3. The Depth of Global Connectedness Figure 3.8 FDI Outward Stock as Percentage of World GDP, 1913 – 2013 31 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 2010 FDI outward stocks as a percentage of world GDP were larger in 2013 than in any other year they were measured as far back as 1910. international connectivity rather than actual international communications. It is included in the DHL Global Connectedness Index as a proxy for international internet traffic because data on the latter are not available on a country-by-country basis. However, the international share of internet traffic on a global basis is estimated at roughly 17%. 32 The explosive growth of international internet bandwidth has not been accompanied by a similar rise in the international share of internet traffic. Analyses of social network traffic indicate that while the internet is a global network, it is used primarily to transmit information within national borders. A published estimate indicates that only 16% of Facebook friends are located across national borders, 33 and newer unpublished research points toward an even lower share, only 10%–15%. Just because we are notionally able to befriend anyone, anywhere, anytime on Facebook doesn’t mean we will: the technology is being superimposed on a “social graph,” which already exists and conforms closely to physical and political geography. Thus, researchers have concluded that Facebook has a “strongly modular network structure at the scale of countries.” 34 Information flows on Twitter are more international than those on Facebook, with an estimated 25% of Twitter followers located in different countries from the people they follow. Nonetheless, only 14% of followers are located in a foreign country that doesn’t share the same dominant language. 35 Followers who re-tweet a user’s tweets are also more likely to be domestic than followers who do not re-tweet. 36 Research on other forms of communication over the internet also backstops the conclusion that people primarily use the internet to communicate domestically rather than across international borders. A study of instant messages on MSN Messenger showed that users who communicated with each other were 16 times more likely to be in the same country (and 27 times more likely to speak the same language) than users who did not. 37 Email exchanges on Yahoo Mail are also significantly more intense among users who are geographically proximate and share cultural ties. 38 Turning to the other components of the information pillar, the depth of international telephone call minutes also rose dramatically from 2005 to 2012 (2013 data were not available as of this writing). The depth of international telephone call minutes is measured here in minutes per capita because the preferable normalization (international share of total minutes) is not available on a country-by-country basis. Nonetheless, on a global basis, the international share of total telephone calling minutes is roughly 2% over standard telephone lines and 3%–4% including calls placed over the internet. 39 The data used in this report to calculate the depth of international telephone calls include both calls placed over fixed and mobile telephone networks (TDM traffic) as well as calls that are routed over the internet (VoIP traffic) but terminate on fixed or mobile telephone networks (such as calls from Skype to fixed and mobile phones). However, they do not include computer-to-computer calls (e.g., Skype-to- Skype calls). In 2012, Skype-to-Skype calls accounted for about one quarter of all international calling minutes. 40 These are excluded from the index because country-bycountry data are not available on such calls. On average, people spoke on international telephone calls for 152 minutes during 2012, up from 88 minutes in 2005 (doubling the number of outbound minutes shown in Figure 3.9 to account for time people spend on both outbound and inbound calls). While these figures do reflect very substantial growth (8% CAGR over 2005–2012), they indicate
DHL Global Connectedness Index 2014 51 Figure 3.9 Information Pillar Depth Ratios, 2005 – 2013 Bits per Second per Internet User Minutes per Capita U.S. Dollars per Capita 60,000 80 $9 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 $8 $7 $6 $5 $4 $3 $2 $1 $0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 International Internet Bandwidth Outbound International Phone Calls Printed Publications Exports Rising depth on the information pillar is driven by the depth of international internet bandwidth and telephone calls, both of which increased every year since 2005. that the average person still transmits and receives a very limited amount of information via international telephone calls: just about 2.5 hours of conversation content per year! The increasing depth of international telephone traffic has been driven by reductions in the cost of international telecommunications, which plummeted in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Rates fell more than 10% each year between 1999 and 2003 and 20% in 2001 alone. By 2008, relative stability had returned to the market, with rates falling at less than 5% per year. 41 Turning to the third component of the information pillar, the depth of trade in printed publications is measured here in dollars of published material traded per person. While this is, again, an imperfect normalization, it is employed because of the unavailability of data to calculate traded publications as a share of total publications produced or sold. The depth of trade in printed publications has fluctuated more than the other components over the period studied. It is, in fact, somewhat surprising that depth has not fallen on this component as the physical shipment of printed material is presumably becoming relatively less important for international information transmission as digital alternatives gain ground. Note that the data used for this component are drawn from trade statistics for all traded material that falls under Harmonized System Code 49 in customs data. While we refer to the category for compactness as “printed publications” it encompasses the following: printed books, newspapers, pictures and other products of the printing industry, manuscripts, typescripts, and plans. 42 Books, a subset of printed publications, can also cross borders via translation and local printing of translated editions. Nonetheless, relatively few titles are actually translated into foreign languages. In the United States and the United Kingdom, just 3% of the books published are translated from foreign languages, and only 1% of fiction. The share of translated books is higher in non-English speaking countries, e.g., 14% in France, and 8% in Germany. 43 Most people, thus, transmit and receive relatively limited international information flows via the internet, telephone calls, and trade in printed publications. Many, however, also rely on the news media to learn about developments in other countries. The depth of international news coverage cannot be included in the index due to data limitations. However, a rough estimate indicates that about 26% of television news coverage around the world relates to foreign stories. 44 That share, however, includes international news related to home country foreign affairs (diplomacy, military engagement abroad, international business, etc.). Excluding home country foreign affairs probably brings the purely foreign share of news coverage down from about 26% to the mid-teens. 45 Online news websites do, at least in the United States, provide more international coverage than other media. On US online news websites, international news accounted for 41% of total coverage in 2011 (24% excluding US foreign affairs), as compared to only 33% in newspapers, 30% in network evening news, and 28% in cable news. 46 In principle, readers of online news could get even more foreign perspective by visiting foreign news websites. However, actual international traffic on foreign news websites is extremely
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Praise for the DHL Global Connected
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DHL Global Connectedness Index 2014

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