Page 85 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

differentiating identical or at least similar places. By introducing unique blends of
forms of consumption, especially when combined with theming, the planner is
76 able to differentiate sites that might otherwise appear unremarkable. The blending
of different forms of consumption serves to create environments that are con-
67
strued as being spectacular. This feature is also significant as a means of combat-
ing home shopping and internet shopping. The internet merchants have been
fighting back by creating their own forms of hybrid consumption. Wolf describes
PepsiCo’s website, Pepsi World, as a means of engaging in a variety of forms of con-
sumption, such as watching a video clip or playing a game, which together are
68
designed to keep the surfer at the site. Similarly, Pine and Gilmore quote the pres-
ident and CEO of AOL: ‘We see online as a whole packaged experience that we
want to bring to consumers. This package increasingly includes some new areas,
and more of what we already have – multiplayer games, shopping and financial
69
services’. Thus, as the internet portals fight back, they create their own forms of
hybrid consumption.
The observation being offered here that new forms of hybrid consumption
frequently provide a means of differentiation can be usefully extended by suggest-
ing that unusual combinations will become even more arresting and therefore help
to draw attention to otherwise commonplace contexts. This kind of reasoning is
especially significant in a world in which not only are many nations’ consumption
spheres dominated by ubiquitous chains but one where the chains are often put
together in combinations that are unmemorable and lacking in a clear identity. The
use of theming and unusual blends of forms of consumption helps to create extra-
ordinariness where otherwise ordinariness reigns. Chains of identical shops and
restaurants in unimaginatively reproduced locations have no identity – they could
be anywhere. They are what both Augé and Zukin have termed ‘nonplaces’, 70 that
is, places without a sense of identity or of being rooted in a recognizable space, and
examples of what Ritzer terms ‘nothingness’, that is, spaces that have no distinctive
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substance. In a world of such standardization, a state of affairs to which processes
like McDonaldization have contributed considerably, theming and hybrid con-
sumption offer commerce and planners ways of differentiating and of creating a
sense of place.

Notes

1 Quoted in Goss (1993a: 22). 6 Quoted in Davis (1997: 103).
2 Quoted in Goss (1993a: 28). 7 Eco (1986: 43).
3 Quoted in Crawford (1992: 15). 8 Euro Disneyland S.C.A. Offer for Sale of
4 Quoted in Barber (1995: 325). 10,691,000 shares by S.G. Warburg
5 This quotation is from ‘Shopology’, the Securities. Quotation is on page 13.
second of two television programmes 9 Bryman (1995: 77).
shown on BBC2 on 9 September, 2001. 10 Quoted in Grover (2001).