Examining The Roles Of Media The Industry Media

In the 21st century, media industries is changing at a very fast pace, and the changing is mainly due to the burgeoning of new technologies. Similarly, government policy shifts towards to the direction of marketisation around the world. As Globalisation made significant policy making have been rose to an international level. At the beginning of my essay, I would introduce the definition of media policy, and examine what are the changes in media industries in the global perspective. Then I would focus on the Chinese media industries. Chinese media policy is quite exceptional, it adopts two regimes to regulate the media industries at the same time, one is the , the other is market-oriented media. Last but not least, I would evaluate the effects of government policy on Chinese media industries and the society as a whole.

Defining the policy in media industries

In an era of globalisation, government intervenes in media industry is a double-edged sword. To certain extent that government intervention may be regarded by global commerce as barriers to market, on the other hand, it could be an assistant for the interest group to promote their benefits (Raboy 2002:3). Japanese scholar Tatsuro Hanada indicates that "Policy is a medium of control acting upon politics and at the same time a product of the political process" (quoted in Rabov 2002:5). Nicholas Garnham defines media as "systems for the production, distribution and appropriation of symbolic forms…based on the development and deployment of technologies of communication" (Garnham 2000:3). The terms of media industries and cultural industries are often exchangeable. David Hesmondhalgh's definition of cultural industries emphasises the connection of symbolic to functional components in their products. Cultural policy in its wider sense could contain public broadcasting, the use of quotas and planning limitations to defend 'national' culture, national ownership rules, patronage and so on (Hesmondhalgh 2007:138). In all areas of commercial life, government intervention is inevitable. Even those states based on private ownership have a great foundation of laws about competition, tax, the obligations of corporations and so on. Government also supplies infrastructures to them, like energy, transport, and communications, and supervises companies to avoid the market power being abused.

Governments intervene in media markets in three main ingredients. They:

legislate: that is, they create laws to address problems of competition, contracts, copyright, obscenity, privacy and so on, and these are comply with constitutions and with the decisions of courts

regulate: government establishes agencies to manage one particular industry or several different industries via laws and is entitled to influence the behaviour of companies and other institutions and actors, such as WTO, EU, ASEAN and so on

subsidise: through complement the furnishing of texts invested by private organisation, in areas such as theatre, opera, fine art and so on, or by admitting investigation and other knowledge created in the public department into the private sector (Hesmondhalgh 2007:106). Maybe add something here.

International policy bodies are pushing the global cultural industry landscape in the direction of conglomeration and commodification, with convergence increasingly accepted as some kind of technologically driven fact rather than a product of policy in itself (Hesmondhalgh 2007:135).

Changes in media industries

There are noteworthy shifts in media industries from 1980 onwards. These transformations in media industries and the reforms of social system are inseparable, mostly concerned with marketisation. I would like to summarise some of the primary changes across the world in four aspects, which are business, policy, media products and audiences. May be add something here.

Firstly, in terms of business, media companies play a more essential role to the national economy than they were in the past. According to the rank in the Fortune magazine list of the biggest 500 companies in the world by revenue, the key media industries corporations have all enhanced their positions from 1995 to 2004. In the latest ranking for 2010, Walt Disney, the biggest media company, has moved up from 60th to 57th, Viacom from 177th to 170th and CBS from 186th to 177th (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/full_list/). However, compare with other big companies in other industries, media industries corporations still have a long way to go to squash in the global business centre. Other remarkable transitions of media corporations are conglomeration and vertical integration. For example, in 1988 and 1989, Sony purchased CBS Record and Columbia Pictures Entertainment separately, such action was assumed to be a model of the future media industry corporations (Hesmondhalgh 2007:160). As for the integration, Time-Warner bought TNT in 1997, which made it dominate the cable networks and own the main cable channels (Hesmondhalgh 2007:169). With the size of big companies improving, a host of small media companies emerges, especially appears some new types of media industry companies in the market. That is because of the creation of new technologies. New technology itself is one kind of transformation in media industries. It brought more entertainment to human life, such as internet, digital TV, mobile video broadcast and so on, which also reforms the policies in media industries. After a new media technology has been introduced, policy makers have to carry out a new regulation to monitor it.

Then, Texts (media products) are spread across national borders, raised transnational cooperation, and created more genres, which helps to reduce the USA hegemony in media industries. At Last, audience's taste of media products is converting and more demanding. Hence, it is getting harder for symbol creators to cater to the audience's preference. Add some comments.

The government policy affects on changes in media industries in China (从三个æ-¹é¢è®²ï¼šæ³•å¾‹ï¼Œæœºæž„，政府赞助；分别举例并评估，例如介绍一条法律/建立的管制媒体的机构/政府在某媒体产业上的投资，由于这条法律/这个机构的建立/这种政府投资，使媒体发生了什么样的变åŒ-，评估这种变åŒ-/发展对媒体和社会分别是有利的还是有害的？Critically evaluate these developments!!! Examing media policy critically!!!!)

Since the early 90s, technology advances contributed to global economic growth, and the frame of policy always considers economy first. Also under the trend of marketisation, the evaluation of media policy is always at a global level. However, every nation has established its unique media policy to fit for the distinctive society system. The media policy is a complex issue, because it links with the political, economic, cultural, social values of a nation (Zhang 2006). Media policy has compromised different policy areas specific to individual industries--broadcasting, film, internet and so on. As media policies are constitute of legislation, regulation and subsidy, I would evaluate them separately in different media domains of China. There has been a vast of debates in internet law in China, Thus I would assess its effects on media industry in China and the society.

(未完，待续..)

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