Abstract
The purpose of this study was to analyze the portrayal of gender and race in the images on the official Disney websites used to market five theme parks: the Disneyland Parks in California, Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and the Magic Kingdom in Florida. This is important because of the growth of e-commerce, Disney’s global influence, and the potential impact on those who view the images. The 452 images that had Disney human characters, human-like characters, animals, cast members, or guests were coded for gender. The main gender hypothesis, that the percentage of male-dominated images would exceed the percentage of female-dominated images, was tested using gender disparity values, which measured the gap between the percentage of male-dominated and female-dominated images. The hypothesis tended to be supported overall, and for most of the resorts (e.g., Florida), lands (e.g., Adventureland), and activities (attractions, entertainment, dining) for human characters, human-like characters, animals, and cast members, but not for guests. Furthermore, the hypotheses that gender disparity values would be highest for images of animals and lowest for images of guests was supported for all five resorts, six of eight lands, and all three activities. Additional analysis also revealed the preponderance of same-sex pairings in parent–child combinations in the images. With regard to race, while the images of some theme parks displayed more racial diversity among their guests than others, in some images, individuals of different races were shown interacting whereas in others they were not. Explanations for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Highlights
Disney, gender, race, theme park, Internet marketing “I’m going to Disney World!” Over the past 25 years, a variety of American athletes and celebrities have given this response when asked, “What’s next?” shortly after their championship games or award-winning performances
Much of our study focused on the gender of those in the images on the five Disney websites used to market the theme parks in California, Florida, Hong Kong, Paris, and Tokyo (The Walt Disney Company, 2010b) and the extent to which they would replicate the findings of previous studies, including those of children’s literature and Disney films
The positive gender disparity values indicated that Hypothesis 1 (H1) was supported for animals (73.0%), human-like characters (23.3%), human characters (18.6%), and cast members (8.0%), but this hypothesis was not supported for guests (−4.1%) because the gender disparity value was negative
Summary
Gender, race, theme park, Internet marketing “I’m going to Disney World!” Over the past 25 years, a variety of American athletes and celebrities have given this response when asked, “What’s next?” shortly after their championship games or award-winning performances This advertising campaign was designed to encourage children and families to take the quintessential family vacation to one of the Disney resorts. Bryman (1999) perceived the influence of Disney to be so wide-reaching that he coined the term Disneyization to describe the ways in which Disney principles continue to infiltrate an increasing number of aspects of SAGE Open society, and Faherty (2001) used Disneyfication to refer to this same phenomenon This very successful, multinational corporation reported total revenues of 40.9 billion dollars for 2011 of which 11.8 billion came from its resorts (The Walt Disney Company, 2011). The portrayal of gender and race in the images reflects the decisions of marketing executives, but these images may shape individuals’ perceptions of gender and race regardless of whether they reflect the reality of the demographics of the population or not
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