Arguments about the potential threat of cosmopolitan communications to national cultures are based on structural developments in the production and distribution of mass communications. Globalization, it is often argued, has expanded the volume of cultural trade in the international market for cultural goods and services. In this chapter, we start by examining the evidence for these claims. The pattern of cultural trade is complex and no one indicator covers all dimensions, so we will examine the overall trends during recent decades by drawing on international statistics from the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Cooperation Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the European Audiovisual Observatory. We focus attention on three aspects of cosmopolitan communications: the balance of trade in audiovisual services (television programs, feature films, and recorded music); the flow of news information through printed newspapers and magazines, TV news and current affairs, and news wire services; and interconnections through new information and communication technologies, including complex cross-border flows and media convergence via the Internet. The evidence is most systematic and reliable for the balance of audiovisual trade, and less comprehensive information is available for monitoring the other types of exchanges, although we can piece together some information from indirect proxy indicators.