Legislation Of The Online Media Industry Foreign Access Under The Gats

Internet media, also known as "new media" or "fourth media", is a newtype of transmission of news and information showing up following thetraditional media such as newspapers, broadcasting and television, whichfeatures with the internet transmission platform. Internet media industry isthe industry that operates the network media. Compared with the singlefunction of the traditional media, the internet media will providecomprehensive information services for the audience by integratingphotographs, voices and images perfectly. Internet media industry hasdeservedly become the mainstream media in mainland China mediabusiness.Internet media industry is a capital and technology intensive industry.Generally speaking, to establish a large scale website, the investment onbandwidth building, technical support and personnel maintenance will be atleast more than 10 million yuan. However, due to its tremendous profit, theinternet media industry is still attractive to global investors. Believing that"Media industry is the last profiteering industry in the 21st century", globalmedia magnates and capital magnates are paying close attention to theonline media market in China, which is far from being fully explored.But unlike other commodities, social network media industry productswill affect the audience's perception and even cause a great shock in thesociety, especially nowadays when some developed countries are implyingtheir cultural ideology backed up with strong economic power and theaggression in cultural field is spreading. Although most countries haveadopted measures to restrict and prohibit the opening of the cultural industry,the closure of an industry will often be broken through according to theindustry division globally. And it is just this kind of relationship betweeninternet media industry and its carrier, telecom industry.Analyzing the GATS framework of telecommunications services traderules, we can find that GATS Telecom Annex obligations laid out aliberalization of the telecommunications industry. Along with the "Basic Telecommunications Agreement" carried out in the January 1, 1998,agreement states that covered 93% telecom market share of the globaltelecommunications market had commitment to end the telecommunicationsmonopoly and closure, and countdown of the full liberalization of thetelecommunications industry has begun.The opening of the basic telecommunications industry provides a basisfor the flow of foreign capital in the internet media field. According to theclassification prevailing, the international telecommunications business isdivided into basic telecommunications service and value-addedtelecommunications services. But in the aspect of transmission mode, thedifference between the two are getting blurred, thus, it is hard to define theonline media industry, which is traditionally considered to be value-addedtelecommunications service,to a certain field. Plus there has not been aninternational treaty specifically targeted at the international network mediaindustry, and the convention on culture media is also rare, so a "gray area"has formed over the online media industry field. Therefore, from the host'spoint of view, as a WTO member, as long as the it commits to open up thetelecommunications market, foreign capital will enter the country legallyaccording to the international legislation, and at last land the operation of thetelecommunications network field. Thus, to establish a legal net whichcomplies with WTO rules as well as ensures the safety of foreign capitalflow in the online media industry field has become an urgent task.However, a complete legislative system has not yet formed in theforeign capital access in network media industry in China. Except its WTOcommitments in the field of telecommunications, there are lots of problemssuch as rough industry division and lack of process control and so on. Ibelieve that the media network foreign capital access system is a set ofregulatory system that takes effect during the host government evaluates theforeign capital aiming to enter the domestic telecommunications industryand set up online media. A biggest feature of the system is "dynamic",which means it not only focuses on the "enter" period but also monitor theoperation of the media industry dynamically. In this way, a whole "entry- regulation- game off" system will established and it will conform tointernational trends such as investment liberalization, principle oftransparency and market focus principle. An attempt has been made todevelop a legislation system in foreign capital access to network mediaindustry.