Professor Janet Wasko

by Janet Wasko

There is a good deal of discussion these days about the convergence of media and communications technologies. Many analysts are predicting the integration of wired and wireless telephones, television sets, personal computers and the Internet — all delivered to the home via digital cable systems.

While most of these discussions focus primarily on “technological convergence,” it also is possible to observe other kinds of converging tendencies. It seems obvious that there has been a kind of industrial or corporate convergence, which is fueling as well as responding to these new technological developments.

During the past few decades, the major media and entertainment companies in the U.S. have been merging to form larger diversified corporations that are involved with all of these converging technologies. An obvious example is the recent proposed merger between AOL and Time Warner. In other words, there is another form of convergence that is taking place within the media and entertainment industries, as well as within the corporate structures of the corporations that dominate these businesses. Increasingly, these companies are realizing the benefits of distributing and promoting their activities across media and communication outlets, creating a synergy between individual units, converging within their corporate structures, and producing immediately recognizable brands.

We can examine these issues by looking at one company. The Walt Disney Company was established in the late 1920s as a small U.S. entrepreneurial enterprise when Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney, began producing Mickey Mouse cartoons. The company grew gradually, always with financial difficulties, but established itself as an independent production company in Hollywood. Never one of the major studios, the Disney Company built a reputation for quality animation, utilizing cutting-edge technological developments such as sound and color.

The popularity of Disney’s products and characters was instantaneous and unmistakable, not only in the U.S. but in other countries. Because of the international distribution of Disney films and the merchandising efforts that accompanied them, the Disney company developed a reputation that was magnified far beyond the relatively small company’s resources. And that reputation has continued.

“Team Disney” took over in the mid-’80s, when Michael Eisner and others began building a media/entertainment empire, declaring that the 1990s was going to be the Disney Decade. Today Disney represents a dominant player in the media and entertainment business — a business that, at least in the U.S., has become increasingly more concentrated over the last few decades, as corporations have moved or, converged) across industry lines to form diversified, multinational conglomerates that dominate the media and culture industries. Fewer than 10 corporations now own the major U.S. broadcast television networks, control the production and distribution of theatrical motion pictures, produce, co-produce or have financial interests in more than 95 percent of prime-time TV programming, and own or have financial interests in more than 95 percent of the cable channels. Thus, the first type of convergence that applies to Disney is within the media, entertainment, and culture industries, where a small number of media giants have converged to dominate the media landscape.

The Oregon Duck. The University of Oregon’s mascot is a version of Donald Duck, which is covered under a contract between the University and the Disney company.

The second interpretation of convergence that applies to the Disney company is a kind of internal convergence, or what has been called synergy. To understand that concept, however, we must first identify the various components of what has been called the Disney Empire.

he Walt Disney Company encompasses a wide array of domestic and international investments, which overlap and reinforce each other to produce sizable revenues for the parent corporation. The Creative Content division covers a wide range of products and distribution outlets, including film, television, cable TV, home video, recorded music, theatrical productions and consumer products. The company has become especially involved with the Internet, through its website, disney.com and its ownership of go.com. The Theme Parks and Resorts division features six major theme parks, hotel and resort properties, a variety of regional entertainment centers, a cruise line, sports investments, and a planned community, Celebration. The Broadcasting division includes ABC Television Network, 10 television stations reaching almost 25 percent of the nation’s household (all affiliated with ABC), ABC Radio Network, plus 26 radio stations reaching 14 million people weekly in the top 20 advertising markets (most affiliated with ABC Radio Network). In addition, there are the specialized radio networks: Radio Disney and ESPN Radio. Add cable.

This certainly is not new for the Disney company. From its inception, the Disney company created strong characters or “brands” that were marketed in various forms (mostly through films and merchandise) throughout the world. However, the company’s synergistic strategies really started in the 1950s when the company opened Disneyland, the theme park that used the characters and brands that Disney had previously created as the basis for the park’s attractions. In addition, the television program, Disneyland, was introduced on ABC, providing further opportunities to promote the theme park as well as the entire stable of Disney brands.
Over the past few decades, the possibilities for synergy have expanded even further with the addition of cable, home video and other new media outlets. Indeed, the Disney company has developed the strategy so well that “Disney synergy” is the phrase typically used to describe the ultimate in cross-promotional activities.
The saturation by the Disney company and the continued proliferation of characters and images by one of the few dominant media corporations represents a kind of cultural synergy or convergence. At the same time, the Disney company also may represent a special case because of its distinctive name and its family image. Indeed, the deliberate and careful development and nearly obsessive control of the Disney brand name has made it far more recognizable to consumers than many other international media companies.

But even though the careful and extensive marketing of Disney products is pervasive and undeniable, the question of cultural impact still remains. In addition to the corporate analysis of the Disney empire, attention must be given to the messages and meanings conveyed and the reception of these cultural products. For instance, readings of Disney texts consistently reveal a typical formula of noble heros, dependent heroines, with individualistic values contributing to romanticized tales that ultimately have happy endings.

Diversification Personified:The Disney Store and the billboards surrounding it in Times Square, New York, exemplify the diversification of products distributed by the Walt Disney Company.

In fact, the continued extension and popularity of the Disney empire presents the opportunity to integrate political economic analysis with insights drawn from cultural analysis and audience studies or reception analysis. In other words, it presents the opportunity for analysis emphasizing the economic as well as the ideological production as well as consumption—a kind of analytical convergence.

An integrated and interdisciplinary approach is crucial to understand the popularity of Disney over the years, as well as the significance of Disney as a major contributor to consumer culture in the U.S. and perhaps as a model for cultural products in other countries around the world. In line with this international focus, we have created a research project called The Global Disney Audiences Project.

The Global Disney Audiences Project is an attempt to begin to analyze the reception of Disney products internationally. The project, which will be published next year by Cassell Publishing, includes a survey and interviews of audience reactions to Disney products in 18 countries, plus 12 individual national profiles outlining Disney’s marketing activities and the specific context for the reception of Disney products in each country. The study examines how extensively and intensively Disney products are marketed, as well as how local audiences interpret and appropriate these products.

The Disney company clearly represents a case of a large American-based multinational media corporation moving into new forms of converging media. We need to pay attention to the trends in industrial or corporate convergence going on in media and entertainment industries, as well as to the potential for cultural convergence represented by those companies’ use of converging technologies.

Janet Wasko’s book Understanding Disney, The Manufacture of Fantasy, Polity Press will be published later this year.