Entertainment or Enterprise?

Walt Disney Productions has overtime established itself as a global entertainment empire. Even though the man behind this company intended for it to become a leading media giant , it begs the question amongst the audience how far these media giants are devoted to solely providing pure, untouched entertainment. This will also be further linked to how all forms of media are steadily becoming increasingly monetized and penetrating into the economy as significant shareholders. Cohen(2012) analysed common economic and governmental terms such as consumer welfare in terms of the ways in which media platforms use audience information to expand their businesses. At this point it is important to note the theory of "mainstream culture" and how what is being shown or sold to us both on social media and elsewhere are influencing our perceptions. Major companies, with the example of Disney in mind, are so influential that they create a market for specific types of films/songs on their own. That is, to suggest how consumer culture is a bi-product of what social media markets to us. Why does everyone love Disney films so much? Could it perhaps be due to the monopolized nature of Disney that makes us believe there is no alternative company which can produce equally entertaining animation films by construing our perceptions of notions like gender and ethnicity? Or is it because we simply are just entertained by what we see?

Moreover, Disney Productions defends itself by saying that it is solely devoted to the quality of the films they produce and hence, issues like film production costs are inevitable. In this case, the argument that Disney is merely an economic shareholder would be unjust according to the claims that the company itself makes. However, the consumer culture that has been marketed heavily, most recently with the example of the Frozen franchise, being worth 500 million dollars according to Forbes Magazine, leaves the uncertainty about how far the audience are consumers and the entertainers are economic producers. Bibliography: Cohen, J. E. (2012). Configuring the networked self. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Beattie, Andrew. "Walt Disney: How Entertainment Became An Empire". Investopedia. N.p., 2017. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.