| Communication among and between people is the building block of all cultures, and internationally the telephone is the least common denominator of communication. Therefore, examining the network of international telephone patterns can demonstrate the flow of communication that alters culture, the least explained triad of world system theory's basis of economic, political and cultural spheres. Using AT&T data listing the three "most frequently called countries" from 218 different nations and the UCINET network analysis program a measure of centrality is constructed for each nation, and thus the structure of the world system and each nation's position within it.;These data are drawn from the years 1988 to 1990, just before the explosion of the "world wide web" and email, the ultimate communication network. I will compare the network positions I find to the work of Nemeth and Smith (1985), Snyder and Kick (1979) and Smith and White (1992) who used economic data to determine world system structure. |
