In the 1980s, Professor Michael Porter of Harvard University proposed the concept of value chain. Porter thinks: "Every enterprise is a collection of activities in the process of designing, producing, selling, sending and assisting its products. All these activities can be shown by a value chain." The basic view of the value chain theory is that not all value activities of an enterprise can create value. What really creates value is some characteristic nodes or links of the value chain, that is, the strategic link of the enterprise value chain, which is also the essence and key of the competition between enterprises. Griffin put forward the concept of Global Value Chain (GVC) on the basis of value chain. The global value chain focuses on where the value is, who created it and how it is distributed, and focuses on the dynamic characteristics of the global industry. In general, the division of labor in the global value chain shows the following characteristics: (1) The global value chain shows the characteristics of globalization. The main participants are transnational corporations, whose level is above the domestic value chain; (2) Enterprises in different countries or regions have unbalanced interests in the value chain, that is, there are differences in economic strength or competitiveness among countries; (3) The basis of GVC division of labor is comparative advantage, that is, the resource or factor endowment of a country or region determines its role and position in the division of labor; (4) The advanced form of global value chain is to develop into a closely connected global production network.
1、 Media industry from the perspective of global value chain
（1） Current situation of media industry
The media industry is a cluster of enterprises or institutions with the main goal of delivering various knowledge and information to the public. From the perspective of typology, the media industry includes traditional media and emerging media. The former mainly includes newspapers, books, audio-visual publishing, magazines, television and radio, while the latter is a new media format that relies on the development of the Internet and new media.
Since the 1980s, after a series of mergers and acquisitions, the world media industry has emerged some cross media, cross industry and cross-border media groups. The global media market is increasingly controlled by a small number of capital oligarchs and multinational companies. The development of the international media industry has shown a serious imbalance. The media oligarchs, taking advantage of industrial intensification and large-scale production, provided consumers with a variety of cultural media products and quickly occupied the high value-added link of the value chain. The media giants represented by Time Warner, Disney and News Corporation occupy 95% of the world media market, and continue to expand to other global markets. Driven by the media giants, the world media pattern has formed two characteristics: First, the competition among media groups has intensified; Second, the global media industry value chain and value network have gradually formed.
（2） Composition of Media Industry Value Chain
The value chain of the media industry, like other industries, includes an organic whole consisting of content creativity, product production, marketing and consumer services. According to the "smile curve theory", the areas with the highest value of the media industry are mainly concentrated at both ends of the value chain - creative research and development and brand services. Therefore, content creativity and consumer services are at the high-end of the value chain, where creative content and product research and development dominate the entire industry chain. Excellent creativity needs professional talents and a tolerant creative environment to achieve. Consumer services realize product value appreciation through information charging, advertising, social media marketing, and sales of IP peripheral products. The production and production of products at the low end need to rely on technology to visualize the creative content, and make finished products by means of photography, editing, 3D modeling, printing and production and other technical means. This link is generally completed by a foundry or outsourcing company. In recent years, the position of the market circulation link in the value chain has been rising, becoming an important link. It realizes large-scale circulation and accurate distribution of product information through film and television broadcasting institutions, newspapers, radio stations, mobile clients and other communication channels. In the digital era, the information communication channel has gradually become a strategic link. It can be said that whoever has mastered the information distribution channel will master the market. Therefore, major media groups have established their own media matrix to occupy the consumer market through cross platform and multi-channel information transmission.
（3） Problems in the Construction of Media Industry Value Chain
1. Limited division of labor and cooperation under administrative intervention
Restricted by China's national conditions, China's media industry is more limited in policy. Although the country has successively issued a number of policies to promote the integration of the media industry, the integration of the media industry in China is still at the stage of "administrative kneading", in a state of independent governance, and there is no organic division of labor. At this stage, most of the domestic media enterprises are "institutional units, enterprise management". Influenced by the traditional management thinking, China's media industry is subject to strict government regulation. It is difficult to achieve market-oriented allocation of media resources. The management system and profitability of media enterprises are dominated by administrative forces, which makes the internal property rights of enterprises unclear and the government and enterprises indistinguishable. It is impossible to form a management mechanism and profitability mechanism that match the media industry within enterprises.
2. Inadequate resource endowment mining
The high value-added link in the value chain of the leading media industry requires the rational allocation of talents, technology, capital and other elements. However, at present, there is a shortage of professionals in content creativity, product research and development, etc; The ability of electronic information technology, network construction and media channel development is relatively backward. In addition, the limited sources of capital make it difficult for foreign capital to enter the media industry. As a result, China's media industry is facing difficulties in transformation and low added value of the value chain, resulting in low production efficiency and resource allocation efficiency. In addition, the core of the media industry is culture. To realize the reconstruction of the value chain, we must give full play to the comparative advantages of the media industry in China. However, due to the insufficient excavation of the cultural core with Chinese characteristics by the media industry in China, it is often in a state of "following the trend", which makes it difficult to produce high-quality cultural products.
3. The production network has not yet formed
Compared with foreign media giants involved in publishing, film and television, entertainment, economy, real estate and other fields, China's media industry has a single value chain, which is limited to the internal sector integration of enterprises and lacks mergers and reorganization between different industries, or only realizes limited cross enterprise division among domestic enterprises, which makes it difficult to form a global production network layout, resulting in a single industrial value chain and high transaction costs, It causes waste of resources. That is to say, the openness of China's media industry is weak, and it is difficult to make full use of the resource advantages of global countries.
2、 The construction path of media industry value chain from the perspective of global value chain
The construction of industrial value chain from the perspective of global value chain means that the construction of the value chain is no longer just about the construction of the internal value chain, but about the whole world, exploring how China's media industry can be embedded into the global media industry value chain from an international perspective.
（1） Accelerate institutional reform and establish modern media enterprise system
Marketization is the right direction for the reform of the media industry, which is not only a clear direction for the development of China's media industry, but also a general trend for the development of the world's media industry. Accelerate the institutional reform and innovation of the media industry, establish a modern media enterprise management system and operation system, bring the operation of the media industry value chain into the operation framework of the modern management system, establish a clear development strategy, establish an operation mechanism that is suitable for the market, and give full play to the role of market resource allocation to enhance its business ability and market vitality.
At the same time, due to the particularity of the media industry, some entertainment media, financial media, film and television animation and other sectors should be divided according to the strength of ideology on the premise of adhering to "the Party controls the media", so as to conduct fully market-oriented operation, allow listing for financing, and participate in international competition; However, some public media have taken strict access measures and administrative supervision to ensure their propaganda and "voice" function for ideology, so as to cultivate a media group with strong competitiveness for China's media industry.
（2） Improve industrial value chain and accelerate industrial integration
The formation of the industrial value chain means that China's media enterprises begin to change from "point" and "surface" to "group cooperation". In countries with relatively mature media economy, major media enterprises often expand their industrial value chain according to the development of media forms, and integrate resources such as creativity, technology and marketing, forming a complete value chain of "opening up the upstream, expanding the midstream and extending the downstream", gradually realizing the maximization of enterprise competitive advantages.
For domestic media enterprises, it is necessary to connect upstream and downstream industries vertically, reduce transaction costs and ensure the supply of raw materials, shorten production time, improve production efficiency, and open up channels from content creativity to technology development to content distribution. For example, iQIYI, Tencent, Youku and other video platforms integrate content creation, film and television production, circulation and communication, greatly reducing the internal cost of production, thus improving the competitiveness and production efficiency of media. Newspaper groups basically have their own printing plants and publishing houses. Independent advertising departments are used for advertising revenue and promotion, greatly reducing the interference of external forces. Horizontally, it is necessary to consider the media enterprises separated from each other as a whole, optimize and coordinate media resources, and extend the core business chain. Implement expansion and diversified operation through merger and acquisition. For example, Zhejiang News Group acquired Frontier Game Company to invest in other fields, realizing economies of scope and reducing production costs.
In addition, we can also try a mixed and extended development model. By strategically restructuring the internal resources of the enterprise, we can try to expand to other surrounding industries with higher returns. Adhering to the principle of not putting eggs in the same basket, we can produce more than two kinds of products or services, and improve our sustainable competitiveness while reducing risks. For example, Guangzhou Daily established Dayang Net in its pursuit of transformation and development, and started an attempt to sell books online based on the website.
（3） Optimize the allocation of production factors and create a driving force for the rise of cultural industry value chain
Technology, talents and capital are indispensable in the construction of industrial value chain. Throughout the expansion and development process of international media giants, none of them is not jointly promoted.
In terms of technology, technology is a key factor in the industrial value chain. Whoever has mastered advanced technology will be able to take advantage in the global value chain. Technology is also the key to the transformation of China's media industry from the "follow and catch up" model to the "lead and drive" model. China's independently developed 5G technology, cloud computing, big data and other new and high-tech technologies have taken the lead in the world, and China's Internet enterprises have begun to take the initiative to enter the overseas market. For example, TikTok's popularity boom in foreign countries ranked first in the download rankings of major applications. Accelerate technological innovation, especially strengthen the construction of the enterprise's own technology R&D platform, and improve the technical content of cultural media products by expanding R&D investment, thus enhancing the enterprise's international competitiveness. We will comprehensively use new technologies to transform and upgrade the original business, so as to drive the overall transformation of China's media industry.
In terms of talents, talents are an important engine for the rise of the value chain of the media industry. In terms of the introduction of talents in the media industry, it is necessary to have expertise in the industry. For the news media, it is necessary to introduce high-quality and comprehensive professionals who integrate interview planning, news writing, filming and editing; For the film and television industry, we should introduce talents who can complete high value-added work such as content creativity and packaging design; Introduce professional and technical talents for post production and program shooting; Introduce high-end service talents who understand marketing services and can develop new high-end businesses and cooperate with enterprises. In addition to vigorously introducing, the enterprise also needs to train and improve its employees to further improve the talent training system. Hold professional training meetings, provide practical opportunities, improve the overall quality of enterprise employees through targeted training, talent exchange, industry university research cooperation and other modes, give play to the leading role of talents, change "blood transfusion" into "blood production", provide enterprises with a steady stream of backup talents, and play a role in ensuring the development of enterprises.
In terms of capital, promoting the value chain of China's media industry to move towards a high-quality stage requires good financial security. First of all, we should optimize and innovate the financial service system, and unblock the new financing path of media enterprises. Especially in the current digital economy era, financial innovations such as Internet finance can break through the time and geographical constraints of financial services, and provide diversified financial services for the media industry in the digital era. Secondly, relax the non market control on media enterprises, and encourage media enterprises to expand financing channels through listing, equity reform, etc. Thirdly, we should further give play to the policy advantages of international and domestic double circulation and regulation and service, optimize the business environment, improve the foreign capital introduction system, and make rational use of foreign capital. Finally, improve the evaluation mechanism for media enterprise qualifications and projects. On the basis of safeguarding the intellectual property rights of the media industry, such as technical achievements, appearance patents, cultural creativity, etc., introduce intellectual property rights into the corporate lending process, optimize the risk evaluation mechanism of the media industry, and then make the media industry move towards market-oriented development.
（4） We should fully explore the cultural connotation of our country and form a unique competitive advantage. The connotation of the media industry is rich, but its core must be culture. From the perspective of global value chain, to occupy the strategic link of value creation, we must give full play to our comparative advantages in the core value link. Take Disney in the United States as an example, its core value is to constantly create an IP image. Based on this core value, Disney has created a number of value growth points, including theme parks, animation films and cartoon surroundings, and continuously extended the industrial value chain. Compared with Disneyland, China has not yet formed an IP product with local culture as the core, nor has it established a large-scale theme park based on local characteristics. In addition, many domestic parks and animation films and TV programs have a large number of imitations, imitations, and even plagiarism. For example, most amusement facilities include projects with typical western elements, such as pirate ships, and the news of Chinese animation plagiarism is not uncommon. In other words, China's media industry has not yet fully developed the rich connotation of local culture and the rich history of China, so it is unable to form its own core value and unique cultural core.
In the process of constructing the value chain, China's media industry should first strengthen its cultural confidence and give full play to its cultural spirit; Secondly, we should abandon the bad habit of copying western culture, and make independent innovation on the basis of imitation, thus forming cultural output; Finally, we should strengthen cooperation among enterprises to form a strong joint force to tell Chinese stories and promote Chinese culture. Only in this way can we firmly grasp the initiative in global cooperation and occupy the core link of the global value chain.
3、 Conclusion
The theory of global value chain is an important tool for understanding and analyzing industrial development. The construction of media industry value chain from the perspective of this theory can provide a solid theoretical basis and policy guidance for China's participation in global market competition. The core of the construction of the global value chain of China's media industry is to give full play to its advantages in cultural resources, promote the integration of the media industry, and then form a global production network. Therefore, China's media industry should break through the shackles of administration, establish a modern enterprise system with clear property rights, actively cultivate the media industry market, form synergies and economies of scale, optimize the allocation of production resources, and create a driving force for the rise of the cultural industry value chain to jump to high value-added links. Therefore, the construction of the value chain of China's media industry should follow the "two-step" strategy. The first step is to actively cultivate the domestic industry value chain and strengthen the division of work and cooperation of enterprises to form the scale effect; The second step is to cultivate the global industrial value chain, and on the basis of adapting to China's cultural development strategy, actively promote China's cultural output, so as to tell a good story about China and enhance cultural confidence.