Media Policy and Globalization - Blogs Unpad

104 MEDIA POLICY AND GLOBALIZATION
rounds for the last fifty years. In the 1947 GATT negotiations and again
in 1960s, the US asked that Europeans should remove quota restrictions
from their film and later television imports. In both cases strong objections
were made by European countries (and in particular the French
whose cultural industry is rather important for national economy and
identity). And while the argument that culture is unlike other commercial
products was easier to accept forty years ago, in the 1980s the argument
for deregulation was moved to include services (Pauwels and Loisen
2003). At the time, deregulation became particularly felt as it started expanding
to state functions and ‘services’. The Uruguay Round became
the terrain of tension between those asking for the full liberalization of
audiovisual services and those voicing strong opposition on the grounds
of ‘cultural exception’. As Pauwels and Loisen (2003) argue, the Free
Trade Agreement between Canada and the US included a cultural exception
clause which helped the rhetorical and discursive battle in favour of
cultural exclusion.
In the meantime, as we discussed in the previous chapter, telecommunications
services had already been completely liberalized. Furthermore,
with the convergence of technologies, certain questions regarding the
circulation and distribution of cultural goods and services through liberalized
telecommunications and other information technologies remain
unanswered. The tendency will be to frame the arguments for liberalization
of digital content based on the rationale that it constitutes part of the
new information economy. The US has already made proposals for the
liberalization of the audiovisual sector in the WTO rounds that were expected
to conclude at the end of 2004 but have been extended at least for
a year. Section II of the US proposal refers to the ‘new’ audiovisual sector
and the new conditions of cultural production and consumption created
by the new technologies. The argument is based on the availability of
an increased number of media outlets as enabled by digital technologies
that provide increased opportunity for cultural expression to reach audiences.
Thus, there can be no argument of Hollywood dominance among
the few broadcasters (and the media generally) as has been argued in the
Uruguay Rounds (USA Communication 2000). The US government has
not simply submitted the proposals for ‘negotiation’ at the WTO rounds,
however, it has also moved towards bilateral free-trade agreements with
a number of countries, creating thereby a de facto situation in the acceptance
of the liberalization of e-commerce, which includes audiovisual
and cultural products in a digital form. Agreements with Chile (2002),
Singapore and the Central American States (2003), and Australia and
Morocco (2004), all include the liberalization of audiovisual content for
e-commerce and via e-communications. Apart from some particularities