Page 169 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

5
young’. However, he also recognizes that the manipulation is sometimes successful
when he writes: ‘Does the audience manipulate things to make meaning, or do
160 other people use things to manipulate them?… both points of view are support-
6
able. Let’s split the difference and be done with it.’ In other words, there is no
point debating whether consumers are duped and therefore successfully manoeu-
vred by corporations or are active resistors of their machinations, frequently
making their own uses and interpretations of these corporate plots: both processes
occur in relation to most people some of the time. What Disneyization describes
is a set of strategies for ‘manipulating’ consumers into parting company with their
money. Some of the time it is successful, but consumers are often aware of what
is going on and that is why organizations often seek to create a ludic ambience
with which to shroud consumption and to mask its commercialism. Encouraging
a ludic atmosphere may persuade consumers to lower their guard, although con-
sumers are frequently likely to be aware of that too.
Whether consumerism is a positive or negative development is a very moot
point. Consumerism as a process of going beyond mere need clearly has many
negative consequences for individuals; for many of them, it may encourage debt,
for example. On the other hand, there is little doubt that consumption has become
a major focus for many people and families, which obviously has been encouraged
by the agents of capitalism. One problem with the association of consumerism
with going beyond mere need is that it assumes the status of a moral position
rather than providing a platform for a search of its adverse effects. My preference
here has been to treat the term and its meaning in a more neutral way in order to
understand its operation, while simultaneously recognizing its adverse conse-
quences for individuals and the environment. The crucial issue then becomes one
of seeking to uncover the ways in which Disneyization as a process reinforces
consumerism, which is a major emphasis of the rest of this section, while the
discussion of ‘anti-Disneyization’ below deals with some of its adverse effects.
One implication of suggesting that Disneyization and McDonaldization are
modes of delivery of goods and services is that it is crucial to appreciate that
Disneyization and McDonaldization are both systems, that is, they are ways of pre-
senting or producing goods and services. One of the problems with tying the
names of these systems to well-know icons of popular culture – Disney and
McDonald’s – is that it is easy to make the mistake of lapsing into a discussion of
just Disney theme parks and McDonald’s. This is an error because the two com-
panies are merely emblems of the underlying processes associated with their
respective systems.
By emphasizing the processes associated with Disneyization and McDonaldization
as systems, it is possible to get away from the shrill but not always revealing
accounts of the global reach of prominent brands. It can hardly be doubted that
there is a clutch of high-profile brands that have spread through much of the
globe, but systems like Disneyization and McDonaldization are in a sense more