Page 150 - The Disneyization of Society

CONTROL AND SURVEILLANCE

at the beginning of this chapter implies. I will concentrate on aspects of control
that relate to Disneyization and on surveillance as a mechanism underpinning
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these aspects. Giddens has observed that surveillance ‘is fundamental to all types
of organisation associated with the rise of modernity’, 15 but what marks the dis-
cussion of surveillance in this chapter is its intensification in the furtherance of
consumption. Consumption is at the heart of Disneyization and as such issues to
do with control and surveillance are intimately connected to maximizing the
visitor/consumer’s ability and inclination to consume goods and services. This
storyline underpins and provides the focus for the discussion that follows.

Control of the consumer

Disneyization entails control over our movement in that we have to be placed in
the right contexts to enjoy our destiny – consuming. A great deal of planning goes
into the mixes of hybrid consumption sites like malls, in order to provide the
right blend of elements, so that they become destinations in their own right and
therefore worth visiting, and to maximize our propensity to consume once there.
The optimum elements are given a great deal of consideration so that as wide a
range as possible of consumption forms will be chosen. As a Trafford Centre
Information Pack, that was available on the internet at the time of the mall’s
opening, put it: ‘Throughout the development, the emphasis will be on equalising
footfall by careful considerations of layout, geometry, architecture and retail-mix.’ 16
Hybrid consumption environments are designed to capitalize upon consumers’
availing themselves of consumption opportunities they had not envisaged until
after their arrival, as much of the discussion in Chapter 3 sought to show. In addi-
tion to controlling movement through layout in the way alluded to by the
Trafford Centre pack, music is frequently employed to affect movement. For
example, the background music in the hallways in the Mall of America is designed
to convey a sense of movement to discourage lingering or loitering and to encour-
age movement towards the Mall’s consumption opportunities. 17
Theming adds a further level of control by manipulating our gaze. It does so
through the mechanism of adjacent attraction outlined in Chapter 2, but it also
does so through the change in the way in which we may perceive themed envi-
ronments. Such environments are meant to create a form of playfulness. In a
study of visitors to the Disney theme parks, it was striking that most of those
interviewed adopted a predominantly ludic response to their experience of the
parks. 18 They were rarely critical, even of the blatant attempts to entice them to
purchase merchandise and other items of consumption. It was almost as though
people suspended their critical abilities and standards of decision-making when
they became absorbed in Disney’s themed settings. People felt pulled along and
wrapped up in the fun of the place and seemed surprised if not perplexed when
probed about possible negative reactions to the partial nature of the messages in