Th.--Sci. de l'éduc. et de la communication--Paris 13, 1986.

En tant que première destination touristique aux Etats-Unis, les parcs à thèmes Disney représentent un phénomène culturel important et une opportunité unique d’évaluer les médias de masse à l’aune de leur influence sur les usages et les conduites. L’analyse se propose d’interroger le concept d’imachination (imagineering), qui désigne chez Disney la conception des environnements thématiques et narratifs des parcs. Au travers de l’examen des protocoles de création des parcs, il s’agit de déterminer comment leurs concepteurs réunissent dans l’environnement certains critères de la narrativité ainsi que les récits qu’ils s’attachent à y raconter. Ainsi, le parc offre l’image d’un monde fictionnel qui, reflétant sous une forme objective certaines valeurs portées par la société américaine, décrit les conditions d’une bonne entente entre le visiteur et son environnement. Investi par le moyen de récits d’attributs psychologiques (souvenirs, valeurs), l’espace du parc oeuvre à la répartition des tâches entre le paysage et l’usager : en assignant un rôle à l’un et à l’autre, l’espace narratif soumet leurs interactions à un script préalable, si bien que les conduites et les émotions du second y relèvent d’une performance.En même temps qu’ils décrivent implicitement les conditions du bon usage du parc, les récits servent à la mobilisation d’acteurs distincts, et, ce faisant, à l’élaboration d’un système sociotechnique : de grands récits de progrès technique et économique ont ainsi permis à la compagnie de s’attacher le concours de grandes corporations américaines et d’obtenir pour son complexe floridien un statut juridique particulier, donnant le jour à un système de production inédit. / As the number-one tourist destination in the United States, the Disney theme parks are asignificant cultural phenomenon and present a unique opportunity to evaluate mass communication inlight of its influence on the user’s behavior and practices. This study aims to provide an analysis of “Imagineering”—that is, the design of narrative environments in the Disney-branded theme parks. By examining the design processes at work in the parks, the analysis shows what stories theso-called “Imagineers” intend to tell as well as how these stories fulfill the requirements of narratives in the very environment of the parks. The park thus presents the image of a fictional world that reflects the values of American society in an objective form, and in so doing provides the conditions for conformity between the user and the environment. As the repository of subjective and psychological traits (memories, values), the narrative space of the park distributes the tasks at hand between the visitor and the environment. By assigning each its role, the park subjects their interaction to a pre-established script—so well that the visitor’s behaviorsand emotions take on the appearance of performances. Besides providing implicit instructions for the proper use of the parks, narratives also serve to mobilize various social agents and in doing so create new sociotechnical systems. Grand narratives of technical and economic progress have thus helped the company secure the collaboration of prominent American corporations as well as a specific legal status for its Florida resort, giving rise to a new production system.

The significance of brands within our media-intensive culture can hardly be overstated. Having emerged in the mid-20th century as platforms for the distribution of commodities, brands have since become, as scholar Celia Lury argues, “the logos of the global economy.” Brand interfaces not only differentiate mass production, but produce cultural assemblages that rewrite social and political relations. This dissertation concerns itself with the meaning of theatrical production within brand performance, with a specific focus on the Walt Disney Company. Although there are many corporate producers in commercial theatre today — Warner Brothers, MGM, Universal, and Cirque du Soleil, to name a few — Disney has the distinction of being the first to make live theatre a cornerstone of its brand relationships. Disney has also had, in branding terms, the most depth, breadth and consistency of any global entertainment brand. Using the concept of assemblage as an applied framework, I consider how Disney’s brand theatre functions as a form of communicative/affective capitalism, as an interface for consumer interactivity and exchange. Following Deleuze and Guattari, DeLanda and Lury, I argue that Disney’s theatre assemblages are heterogeneous, contingent, emergent and most of all generative. At the heart of this project is the question of how Disney’s theatre assemblages cohere – the question of identifiable, intensive continuities. What kinds of historical contingencies are replicated in Disney’s texts and territories? How does the company code cultural flows? In what ways are Disney’s theatre assemblages networked to social formations like childhood, gender, race, sexuality, and nation? What kinds of consumer interactions and socio-technical conditions are most important to the ongoing process of developing brand relations? Although Disney’s multi-modal theatre assemblages are a function of neoliberal logic and labor norms, and sustain dominant modes of production, they are also highly mutable, often supporting contested claims of intelligibility and citizenship. The company produces a vast range of theatre experiences. This dissertation focuses on character encounters, children’s theatre, Broadway musicals, a re-creation of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and animal/safari performance. The chapters are composed as a nested set of assemblages, starting with theatre for Disney’s most important demographic: children. I then move into larger social fields/assemblages, considering theatre that addresses the nation, theatre that reframes transnational/global space, and finally, animal/ecological theatre. Taken together, the chapters present an argument for the significance of brand theatre as a localized, expressive, collaborative and extremely flexible site of cultural affiliation, agency and assembly.

Thesis (M.A.I.S.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-138). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Denna komparativa analys jämför J.M. Barries Peter Pan och Wendy (2013) med Disneys Peter Pan (2015) för att se hur karaktärerna förändrats genom adaptionen av berättelsen. En narrativ analys presenterar berättelsens intrig och följs av en komparativ analys av de två verken där fokus ligger på vad som tagits bort vid adaptionen och hur karaktärerna framställs. Analysen visar hur mycket som vid adaptionen tagits bort och att detta påverkar bilden läsaren får av karaktärerna.

Ce travail aborde les relations existant entre l’amour platonicien et l’amour présent dans les films d’animation de Walt Disney. Disney étant l’un des plus grands médias culturels occidentaux, si ce n’est mondiaux, retrouver Platon chez Disney, c’est voir l’influence de la philosophie grecque sur l’Occident actuel et son héritage. La comparaison sera déployée selon quatre grands thèmes : le rôle du beau dans l’amour, ἔρως comme intermédiaire, l’amour comme folie divine, l’amour comme méthode éducative. Nous commencerons par exposer les mœurs en Grèce antique, pour présenter adéquatement la position de Platon. Nous nous demanderons ensuite les causes pouvant expliquer l’apparition de la théorie platonicienne de l’amour chez Disney. Nous présenterons par la même occasion les contes qui ont inspiré Disney et qui peuvent parfois avoir des racines platoniciennes. Finalement, nous comparerons les films de Disney avec la pensée de Platon au sujet de l’amour. / This paper presents the existing correlations between the concept of platonic love and the love displayed in Walt Disney's animated movies. Disney being one of the biggest media in Occident, if not in the world, finding Plato's theory in Disney movies means seeing the traces of Greek philosophy in today’s occidental world, and its heritage. We will ask ourselves why there is an existing relationship between Plato’s theory and Disney. The comparison will be made around four themes: the role of beauty in love, ἔρως as intermediary, love as divine foolishness, love as educational method. We will first expose the customs of ancient Greece in order to present adequately Plato’s position. We will present the fairy tales that inspired Disney, which sometimes find their origin in Platonism. Finally, we will compare Disney movies with Plato’s reflections about love.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

The objective of this study is to examine the emotional regulation strategies used by Walt Disney World on-stage employees as a way to fulfill requirements set forth by the company. Ten Disney on-stage employees were interviewed off-property in Orlando. The emotional regulation framework was divided into several categories: (1) a distinction between deep acting and surface acting, (2) emotional deviance, and (3) emotional exhaustion. “Surface acting” is a strategy by which employees display company-imposed emotions not genuinely felt, whereas “deep acting” occurs when employees do feel the emotions that they are required to express (Hochschild, 1983). Throughout the data reduction process, five key themes surfaced as the most relevant to the initial research questions: (1) Self-Motivated Deep Acting, (2) Organizational Expectations for Surface Acting, (3) “Back-Stage” vs. “Front-Stage” Dichotomy, (4) Benefits of Emotional Training, and (5) Negative Effects of Emotional Regulation. Overall, the researcher found that a key strategy of emotional regulation that Disney employees use frequently is surface acting, although deep acting was found to be more successful. In addition, while emotional exhaustion was a common problem among employees, very few of them will actually engage in emotional deviance in order to avoid the negative consequences of surface acting. Lastly, it was found that highly skilled Walt Disney World employees will have already internalized emotional regulation training and display rules that manage emotional behavior. Therefore, it becomes less essential for the Disney Company to formally monitor its employees’ facial expressions and emotional behavior in the future