Hirohito and his Mickey Mouse watch, Goofy and Donald as our "Goodwill Ambassadors:" Disney Discourse is an interdisciplinary examination of the founder and his empire. These essays use an interdisciplinary approach to read through Disney's domestic cultural production "innocent" national icons, as well as theme parks, cartoons and television to analyze the global impact of American popular culture, the politics of Disney, and the complex reception Disney productions have received around the world. The Disney corporation's ever-increasing visibility the opening of Euro Disney and new stores in malls and vast influence over global culture demands critical attention not only in film and television studies, but in international diplomacy, architecture, economics and other related fields. Disney Discourse consolidates the best of the current work on Disney and provides a representative sample of past analyses of the Disney empire. Contributors: Julianne Burton-Carvajal, Lisa Cartwright, Brian Goldfarb, Richard deCordova, Douglas Gomery, David Kunzle, Jon Lewis, Moya Luckett, Richard Neupert, Susan Ohmer, José Piedra, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Alexander Wilson.

Hirohito and his Mickey Mouse watch, Goofy and Donald as our "Goodwill Ambassadors:" Disney Discourse is an interdisciplinary examination of the founder and his empire. These essays use an interdisciplinary approach to read through Disney's domestic cultural production "innocent" national icons, as well as theme parks, cartoons and television to analyze the global impact of American popular culture, the politics of Disney, and the complex reception Disney productions have received around the world. The Disney corporation's ever-increasing visibility the opening of Euro Disney and new stores in malls and vast influence over global culture demands critical attention not only in film and television studies, but in international diplomacy, architecture, economics and other related fields. Disney Discourse consolidates the best of the current work on Disney and provides a representative sample of past analyses of the Disney empire. Contributors: Julianne Burton-Carvajal, Lisa Cartwright, Brian Goldfarb, Richard deCordova, Douglas Gomery, David Kunzle, Jon Lewis, Moya Luckett, Richard Neupert, Susan Ohmer, José Piedra, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Alexander Wilson.

These scholarly essays examine Disney’s cultural impact from various perspectives—including film studies, history, musicology, gender and more. The academic field of Disney Studies has evolved greatly over the years, as the twelve essays collected in this volume demonstrate. With a diversity of perspectives and concerns, the contributors examine the cultural significance and impact of the Disney Company’s various outputs, such as animated shorts and films, theme park attractions, television shows, books, music, and merchandising. By looking at Disney from some of its many angles—including the history and the persona of its founder, a selection of its successful and not-so-successful films, its approaches to animation, its branding and fandom, and its reception and reinterpreted within popular culture—Discussing Disney offers a more holistic understanding of a company that has been, and continues to be, one of the most important forces in contemporary culture.

Disney Stories: Getting to Digital explores how Disney, the man and the company, used technological innovation to create characters and stories that engage audiences in many different media, in particular in Video Games and on the Internet. Drawing on Disney films from the twenties and thirties, as well as the writings of historians, screenwriters and producers, Disney Stories: Getting to Digital explains how new film and animation techniques, many developed by Disney, worked together to evolve character and content development and produce entertaining stories that riveted audiences. Through an insider’s perspective of Disney’s legendary creation process, the book closely examines how the Disney Company moved its stories into the digital world in the 1990s and the virtual, online communities of the 2000s. By embracing the digital era, Disney led storytelling and technological innovation by granting their audience the unique opportunity to take part in their creation process through their online games, including The Lion King Animated Story Book, Disney Blast and Toontown. Disney Stories: Getting to Digital is intended for Disney fans and current practitioners looking to study the creation process of one of the most famous animation studios in existence. Professors teaching courses in new media, animation and interactive storytelling will also find this book a valuable asset.

Since the 1930s, the Walt Disney Company has produced characters, images, and stories that have captivated audiences around the world. How can we understand the appeal of Disney products? What is it about the Disney phenomenon that attracts so many children, as well as adults? In this updated second edition, with new examples provided throughout, Janet Wasko examines the processes by which the Disney company – one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world – continues to manufacture the fantasies that enthrall millions. She analyses the historical expansion of the Disney empire into the twenty-first century, examines the content of Disney’s classic and more recent films, cartoons and TV programs and discusses how they are produced, considering how some of the same techniques have been applied to the Disney theme parks. She also discusses the reception (and sometimes, reinterpretation) of Disney products by different kinds of audiences. By looking at the Disney phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, she provides an updated and comprehensive overview of one of the most significant media and cultural institutions of our time. This important book by a leading scholar of the entertainment industries will be of great interest to students in media and cultural studies, as well as a broader readership of Disney fans.

Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation provides a comprehensive and thoroughly up-to-date examination of the Disney studio's evolution through its animated films. In addition to challenging certain misconceptions concerning the studio's development, the study also brings scholarly definition to hitherto neglected aspects of contemporary Disney. Through a combination of economic, cultural, historical, textual, and technological approaches, this book provides a discriminating analysis of Disney authorship, and the authorial claims of others working within the studio; conceptual and theoretical engagement with the constructions of 'Classic' Disney, the Disney Renaissance, and Neo-Disney; Disney's relationship with other studios; how certain Disney animations problematise a homogeneous reading of the studio's output; and how the studio's animation has changed as a consequence of new digital technologies. For all those interested in gaining a better understanding of one of cinema's most popular and innovative studios, this will be an invaluable addition to the existing literature.

Featuring a wide range of exercises, examples, and images, this textbook provides a practical way of analyzing the discourses of the global media industries. Building on a comprehensive introduction to the history and theory of global media communication, specific case studies of lifestyle and entertainment media are explored with examples from films, global women's magazines, Vietnamese news reporting and computer war games. Finally, this book investigates how global media communication is produced, looking at the formats, languages and images used in creating media materials, both globally and in localized forms. At a time when the media is becoming increasingly global, often with the same films, news and television programmes shown all over the world; Global Media Discourse provides an accessible, lively introduction into how globalization is changing the language and communicative practices of the media. Integrating a range of approaches, including political economy, discourse analysis and ethnography, this book will be of particular interest to students of media and communication studies, applied linguistics, and (critical) discourse analysis.