Disneyization Defined



In a sense, Disneyization takes up where McDonaldization leaves off. McDonaldization is frequently accused of creating a world of homogeneity and sameness. One of the main foundations for Disneyization is that of increasing the appeal of goods and services and the settings in which they are purveyed in the increasingly homogenized environments that are the products of McDonaldization. In essence, Disneyization is about consumption. Consumption and, in particular, increasing the inclination to consume, is Disneyization’s driving force. Disneyization seeks to create variety and difference, where McDonaldization wreaks likeness and similarity. It exchanges the mundane blandness of homogenized consumption experiences with frequently spectacular experiences. In addition, Disneyization seeks to remove consumers’ need for the prosaic fulfilling of basic needs and to entice them into consumption beyond mere necessity. To take a simple and somewhat stereotyped illustration: eating in a standard McDonald’s or Burger King may have the advantage of filling a basic need (hunger) cheaply and in a predictable environment,6 but Disneyized restaurants are likely to provide an experience that gives the impression of being different and even a sense of the dramatic while being in a location that perhaps increases the likelihood that the consumer will engage in other types of consumption, such as purchasing merchandise or participating in other activities in a hybrid consumption setting. Hybrid consumption environments themselves frequently take on the characteristics of the spectacular because of the sheer variety of consumption opportunities they offer and especially when accompanied by theming. To a significant extent, then, Disneyization connects with a post-Fordist world of variety and choice in which consumers reign supreme.Excerpted from Pg 4-5, ‘The Disneyization of Society’ by Alan Bryman

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