Media Hegemonies/Mapping Who Owns What: Oh my God Why Disney!

After doing some research on the Internet I realized some extremely shocking news. I came to the realization that one of my favorite words, as a child owns the world. That word was “Disney.” When I saw the full list of what Disney owns, I spoke the words “This Company owns everything.” Then I thought to myself that this is pretty horrific news. This one company basically controls a portion of our world’s media leading the world to get its information from one enormous source. I see this company as a tree, the term “Disney” is the trees trunk and all of its companies are the branches. Leaving only the leaves left which are the world’s population. Without us these companies cannot operate but with us they become large, safe and wealthy companies. These companies support us and essentially rule over our lives in a certain way shape or form. If we do not like this, there is nothing we can do. If we speak, we just fall off the branches only to lie on the grass to decompose. This is the giant affect that this large company has on our world. This is a list of some companies, which “Disney” owns:

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Pixar Animation Studios

DisneyToon Studios

Touchstone Pictures

Hollywood Pictures

Miramax Films

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

Disney Theatrical Productions

Disney Live Family Entertainment

Disney on Ice

Walt Disney Records

Hollywood Records

Lyric Street Records

Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California

Disney Cruise Line

Vacation Club

Adventures by Disney

Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, California

Walt Disney World Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Tokyo Disney Resort, Urayasu, Chiba

Disneyland Resort Paris, Marne La Valle, France

Hong Kong Disneyland, Penny's Bay, Lantau Island

The Disney Store

The Disney-ABC

ABC Television Network

Disney Channels

SOAPnet

Radio Disney Network

ESPN, Inc., The Worldwide Leader in Sports

Family Channel

Disney.com

Family.com

Movies.com

mDisney

The Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG)

After Figuring out this information I was rather shocked because of all the familiar names that were displayed. I had only thought that Disney was a childhood company and did not cater to other markets. I also came to the realization that this so-called children’s company appeals to everyone by the companies it owns. I believe that Disney has a large role in cross media ownership because of all the different companies in which it claims ownership of. Film, music and television are all different mediums of the media and Disney owns companies in each one of those fields giving them a large part of the world media sources. By Disney owning all of these companies, it places an enormous “hegemony” on the company in my eyes. I say this because Disney owns so much of our world’s media, which then causes the company to maintain and consolidate its power. By doing so the company has great power over the economic, political, and cultural direction of a given nation or place because it has a say in the media that will be distributed into our world. This is extremely dreadful because this company has an enormous hold on our media and the news and information that is translated to the rest of the world. I see this as extremely unsettling and rather shocking.

I would like to hear what others think, as this is an important topic and it greatly affects each and every one of us.

Works Cited

"Company Overview." The Walt Disney Company. 2009. © Disney. All rights reserved., Web. 20 Nov 2009. http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/overview.html

Reilly, Ian. "Semiotics!." mass.communication . 2009. A Wetpaint Site, Web. 20 Nov 2009. http://waysofseeing.wetpaint.com/page/Semiotics%21