Disney's Success

NM3224: Culture Industries

ACADEMIC ESSAY
Disney: A corporate powerhouse

Name: Tang Chen Xi
Matriculation number: A0070708H
Tutorial Group: W1 (Monday 12 ~ 1pm)
Tutor: MS Anuradha Rao

Preface
Walter Elias Disney was an accomplished genius of the 19th, 20th century and is responsible for establishing one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world: The Walt Disney Company. The Walt Disney Company generates some US$40 billion in annual revenue (“Disney CEO,” 2011) effortlessly; theme parks like Disneyland and DisneySea draw visitors by the millions every and merchandise are available everywhere. Nevertheless, as this consumerist culture becomes even more prominent in the 21st century, cultural production of Disney products has definitely changed and Disney increasingly finds the need to adapt to different situations and accommodate to the on-going process of globalization. How Disney manages to become a successful multi-media conglomerate is of particular interest to me. Disney is also notoriously known for promoting the capitalist system and this is worth researching especially in a globalizing age where cultural products have the capacity to permeate transnational borders.
This paper aims to analyze the production of Disney products and its relationship with capitalism amidst globalization and the strategies Disney uses in the political economy approach. Scholars such as Adorno (1991) see standardisation of cultural products as a homogenising process in capitalist societies. Other scholars such as Wasko (2001) and Ross (1999) discuss about ‘Disneyfication’ and these are areas of interest in my study of Disney. I would also explain how it engages in cultural imperialism and how it exerts its hegemonic power. Exploring how Disney diversified into various media platforms and genres (films, music) to achieve a pervasive effect are other areas central to Disney’s method of production.

Disney’s marriage with capitalism in a world of

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