Disney Theme Research Articles

It’s a small, small, small world: The Icesave dispute and global orders of difference

Drawing on Roy and Ong’s work on worlding, this article introduces the concept of orders of difference to analyze the selective incorporation of the nation-state into supranational political and economic systems. I argue that attending to orders of difference is necessary to better understand the ways that imagined equality is mobilized to reproduce global injustice. I do so through a combined examination of the liberal globalism of the iconic “It’s a Small World” ride at Disney theme parks and Iceland's role in the Icesave dispute—a key struggle of the 2007–8 financial crisis. The design of the Small World1ride effects a form of worlding by ordering differences into those that are similar enough to be permitted and those that are too different to be incorporated. In the process, the ride invokes a small world2that precisely encapsulates the more complex globalisms that inform the organizational structure of supranational bodies like the European Union and European Economic Area. Global finance is said to be one of the world’s most seamless supranational systems, but one of its many seams was made visible during the Icesave dispute as two orders of difference came into conflict: European Economic Area membership and Icelandic politics. Representatives of the Netherlands and the UK argued that Iceland’s membership in the European Economic Area meant that Iceland was fully the same as other member nations, while those from Iceland successfully argued that its domestic and international economies were irreducibly different. The dispute thus hinged upon a debate over how differences are ordered within and between nations, including the number of permissible orders and the precise extent to which member nations are or should be made commensurable through supranational geopolitics.

Mirror, Mirror for Us All

Love them or hate them, Disney theme parks have become some of the most culturally significant locations of collective memory of the American experience. Rather than focus, as most discussion has, on whether this should be viewed as “good” or “bad,” this essay seeks to lay a groundwork for understanding how Disney parks gained their cultural authority. In doing so it will suggest that public historians could benefit from framing the interaction between history and the public at Disney parks as a location-specific process by which the public and a corporation are engaged in a cultural ritual of transforming historical fact into the national narrative.

Fans as the Researcher’s Unwitting Collaborators

This article examines the notion of fan labor through Disney park fans’ work of “Disney scholarship” and “Disney history,” as well as the extent to which such data might be used by academic researchers. While it provides unavoidable entry points to academic investigations of Disney theme parks and their history, this body of knowledge reveals underlying motivations specific to fandom’s social and cultural economy. A brief history of Disney park fandom will show how fan-created works of “Disney scholarship” evidence popular expertise in often disregarded areas of culture, as well as processes of fan labor that complicate the traditional amateur/professional binary. For all their claims to professionalism, fans generally regard paid labor with suspicion and trade fan-collected data by rules typical of a gift economy. As self-styled Disney historians morph into Disney custodians, they reveal underlying motivations that help make sense of the data they produce: in their struggle to preserve Walt-era attractions and protect the park from the corporation’s commercialism, fans reveal a set of prescriptive attitudes on how to engage with the parks that inform their practices as park chroniclers. This is especially evident in controversies over proposed attraction updates, as fans set out to promote a historically and aesthetically discerning appreciation of Disney products, outside the imperatives of commercial culture.

“They All Trust Mickey Mouse": Showcasing American Capitalism in Disney Theme Parks

This paper sets out to examine ways in which the Disney company has come to enlist the help of private corporations in the design and operation of its theme parks, allowing the products and messages of large industrial conglomerates to take on increasing prominence the parks’ environment. In their celebration of the free enterprise system, the parks have striven to not only create environments especially conducive to consumption but also extol private corporations as engines of progress. Disney’s efforts to repackage industry help shed light on the media’s role in a capitalist economy – namely, the promotion not just of individual companies but of a brand of capitalism most readily acceptable by the public.

Hybrid spaces: Melbourne Museum’s Jurassic World: The Exhibition

Abstract In 2016, The Melbourne Museum staged the world premiere of Jurassic World: The Exhibition, a globally touring exhibition inspired by Universal Pictures’ blockbuster film, Jurassic World (2015), featuring animatronic dinosaurs created by Melbourne’s Creature Technology. The exhibition had the most successful opening month of any exhibition at the Museum to date, selling over 100,000 tickets. Yet Jurassic World also met with controversy for its theme park-esque design and pervasive branding, prioritization of spectacle and attraction over cultural heritage and education, and seamless integration of fact and fiction. In this article, we carry out a close analysis of Jurassic World’s combination of theme park and museum exhibition practices, situating the exhibition as a particularly significant example of the developing trend towards the creation of immersive ‘narrative environments’ in twenty-first century museums, as museums increasingly draw upon the devices of popular entertainment to engage and attract guests. Drawing from Norman Klein’s model of the ‘scripted space’ and Joseph Pine and James Gilmore’s ‘experience economy’, which has its roots in Disney theme parks, our analysis shows how Jurassic World plays with the boundaries of fact and fiction in a way that self-reflexively interrogates the contemporary relationship between popular entertainment and museums.

Assessing the distribution and drivers of vaccine hesitancy using medical claims data

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to investigate the use of large-scalemedical claims data for local surveillance of under-immunizationfor childhood infections in the United States, to develop a statisticalframework for integrating disparate data sources on surveillance ofvaccination behavior, and to identify the determinants of vaccinehesitancy behavior.IntroductionIn the United States, surveillance of vaccine uptake for childhoodinfections is limited in scope and spatial resolution. The NationalImmunization Survey (NIS) - the gold standard tool for monitoringvaccine uptake among children aged 19-35 months - is typicallyconstrained to producing coarse state-level estimates.1In recent years,vaccine hesitancy (i.e., a desire to delay or refuse vaccination, despiteavailability of vaccination services)2has resurged in the United States,challenging the maintenance of herd immunity. In December 2014,foreign importation of the measles virus to Disney theme parks inOrange County, California resulted in an outbreak of 111 measlescases, 45% of which were among unvaccinated individuals.3Digitalhealth data offer new opportunities to study the social determinantsof vaccine hesitancy in the United States and identify finer spatialresolution clusters of under-immunization using data with greaterclinical accuracy and rationale for hesitancy.4MethodsOur U.S. medical claims data comprised monthly reports ofdiagnosis codes for under-immunization and vaccine refusal(Figure 1). These claims were aggregated to five-digit zip-codes bypatient age-group from 2012 to 2015. Spatial generalized linear mixedmodels were used to generate county-level maps for surveillanceof under-immunization and to identify the determinants of vaccinehesitancy, such as income, education, household size, religious grouprepresentation, and healthcare access. We developed a Bayesianmodeling framework that separates the observation of vaccinehesitancy in our data from true underlying rates of vaccine hesitancyin the community. Our model structure also enabled us to borrowinformation from neighboring counties, which improves predictionof vaccine hesitancy in areas with missing or minimal data. Estimatesof the posterior distributions of model parameters were generated viaMarkov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods.ResultsOur modeling framework enabled the production of county-levelmaps of under-immunization and vaccine refusal in the UnitedStates between 2012-2015, the identification of geographic clustersof under-immunization, and the quantification of the associationbetween various epidemiological factors and vaccination status.In addition, we found that our model structure enabled us to accountfor spatial variation in reporting vaccine hesitancy, which improvedour estimation.ConclusionsOur work demonstrate the utility of using large-scale medicalclaims data to improve surveillance systems for vaccine uptake andto assess the social and ecological determinants of vaccine hesitancy.We describe a flexible, hierarchical modeling framework forintegrating disparate data sources, particularly for data collectedthrough different measurement processes or at different spatial scales.Our findings will enhance our understanding of the causes of under-immunization, inform the design of vaccination policy, and aid inthe development of targeted public health strategies for optimizingvaccine uptake.Figure 1. Instances of vaccine refusal (per 100,000 population) for UnitedStates counties in 2014 as observed in medical claims data.

Mickey Mouse Muzak: Shaping Experience Musically at Walt Disney World

AbstractThe academic assessment of the products of the Walt Disney Company is usually highly negative, drawing out their sexist, racist, and mercenary factors. Although such views are not easily denied, their strong ideology often hides how Disney texts actually operate and how their audiences interact with them. This article explores how recorded music is used in the Disney theme parks to condition audience response, finding a middle ground between an ideological view, exploring the part music plays in social control, and a hermeneutic view, seeing how music functions in articulating and enhancing the experiences in which Disney's guests participate. Disney's Imagineers draw on the language of film music to create a wide variety of narrative musical spaces that give guests the impression that they navigate through these carefully staged narratives as protagonists. Film-musicological models show that guests are encouraged to feel that they control the respective spaces, although filtering the model through critical theory will demonstrate that the spaces can actually be seen as controlling them. While critical theory and structuralist hermeneutics might seem at first like strange bedfellows, analyses of both the narratives themselves and of their social effects can usefully reflect each other, together providing a more nuanced view of Walt Disney World's experiential texts than has been presented either in the academy or by Disney itself.

The Walt Disney Company: Mickey Mouse Visits Shanghai

The strategic and tactical problems of managing the operations function in a service environment can be examined through the context of the Walt Disney Company (DIS) opening Shanghai Disneyland. The company and its investors were excited about the Shanghai opening for a good reason: demographics. The resort would be located in the Pudong district of Shanghai, easily the wealthiest of all of China's districts. A massive 330 million people lived with a three-hour driving radius of the resort site, compared with 19.6 million who lived within the same radius at DIS's most profitable park, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Still, risks remained. Construction complications had delayed the opening almost a year longer than expected and cost overruns and alterations had increased the final price tag of the project. The Chinese economy had also hit a rough patch following the Chinese stock market slump in the summer of 2015. With the world watching, could the classic Disney theme park experience be delivered with the right cultural balance to appeal to its largely Chinese customers? Could DIS get it right? Excerpt UVA-OM-1545 Rev. Oct. 3, 2016 The Walt Disney Company: Mickey Mouse Visits Shanghai We're building something that's authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese. It definitely will be Disneyland in China, but we'll obviously be respectful of the Chinese culture and relatable to the people of China. —Walt Disney Company (DIS) Chairman and CEO Robert A. Iger Even for a company built on the creative risk-taking culture instilled by founder Walt Disney, the 2016 opening of Shanghai Disneyland (SDL) was an audacious bet. The sixth global Disney resort would occupy nearly 1,000 acres of land in Shanghai, China—twice the acreage used in the Anaheim, California, Disneyland (DL) and almost eight times the size of Hong Kong Disneyland (HKDL) at its launch in 2005. The Shanghai resort, the first in mainland China, would feature several themed lands such as Tomorrowland, Treasure Cove, Disneytown, and the Enchanted Storybook Castle, which would be the biggest and tallest Disney castle ever. Indeed, it wasn't just the exhibits that were large: “We've never built a park as big as this to open on opening day,” said Chairman and CEO Robert Iger. “This is the biggest.” . . .

The Walt Disney Company: Mickey Mouse Visits Shanghai

The strategic and tactical problems of managing the operations function in a service environment can be examined through the context of the Walt Disney Company (DIS) opening Shanghai Disneyland. The company and its investors were excited about the Shanghai opening for a good reason: demographics. The resort would be located in the Pudong district of Shanghai, easily the wealthiest of all of China’s districts. A massive 330 million people lived with a three-hour driving radius of the resort site, compared with 19.6 million who lived within the same radius at DIS’s most profitable park, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Still, risks remained. Construction complications had delayed the opening almost a year longer than expected and cost overruns and alterations had increased the final price tag of the project. The Chinese economy had also hit a rough patch following the Chinese stock market slump in the summer of 2015. With the world watching, could the classic Disney theme park experience be delivered with the right cultural balance to appeal to its largely Chinese customers? Could DIS get it right?

Comcast and Disney Theme Park Strategy: Competing in A Complex Environment

Comcast and Disney Theme Park Strategy: Competing in A Complex Environment

Miyazaki’s Little Mermaid: A Goldfish Out of Water

Abstract When Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away reached American theaters in 2002, children by and large were enthralled, but some of us adults were confused. This English-language version of the original Japanese film bore the Disney logo, but it was clearly not Disney. It was longer, for one thing, with odd pauses during which the characters seemed to be pondering,¹ and the line between good and evil seemed blurred and shifting. On the other hand, it also did not fit the American stereotype of Japanese animation--too detailed, too expensive, and with a surprising absence of exploding robots. One thing about this movie did strike a familiar note: like many Disney features, it presented imagination as a sometimes dark and dangerous thing. That imagination is both a gift and a curse is hardly a new idea; its double-edged presence in children’s literature has long attracted scholarly attention. But for an animated film to warn viewers of the hazards of something without which it could not begin to exist seems downright hypocritical. When the most creative, surrealistic animated images are made to serve a story that preaches reason and restraint, they seem almost to erase themselves, like the path through Tulgey Wood rubbed out by broom dogs in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951). Disney publicity has never officially acknowledged any ambivalence about its chief product; what would a commercial for a Disney movie or theme park be without the word "imagination" or its near relative, "dream"? Yet even the post- Walt animated films of the neoclassic period, which began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid, may convey, in the tension between their pictures and their plots, a deep sense of unease.²

Lessons From the Happiest Place on Earth

THE ROOTS OF DISNEY AND ITS RELEVANCE TO BUSINESS When the Disneyland resort opened in the summer of 1955, it consisted of a single theme park built on a 160acre orange grove in Anaheim, California. Today, it comprises 2 theme parks, 3 hotels, an entertainment district, and an expansive shopping area, all in California alone. More than 600 million people have visited the park, many as return guests, making the Disney theme parks the number one tourist attraction in America [1]. The Disneyland model is highly regarded for its organizational effectiveness and is taught in several business school curricula. Additionally, the Disney Institute has been established to provide business leaders with insights regarding the Disney approach to human resource management, brand development, and customer service; roughly a third of its attendees work in the health care industry [2]. At first glance, Disney may seem an unusual role model for health care leaders. However, a closer inspection shows several similarities between the challenges of operating a theme park and those faced by hospital administrators. Disney executives are charged with sustaining the massive Disney enterprise while battling long lines and ensuring a pleasant experience for their

From the World’s Fair to Disneyland: Pavilions as Temples

From the World’s Fair to Disneyland: Pavilions as Temples

No Swan Song for Baron Justus von Liebig

Giessen Professor Justus Liebig was elevated to Freiherr (Baron) in 1845, the year that Bavaria’s future “Swan King”, Prince Ludwig II, was born. The prince’s parents, King Maximilian II and Queen Marie are depicted (right) formally receiving Liebig 7 years later, in 1852, after the Baron had accepted their royal invitation to a professorship at the University of Munich. A pioneering professor of organic and agricultural chemistry, Justus von Liebig would also curate Germany’s oldest continuously maintained botanical gardens and consult on other royal gardens. He passed away in 1873, about 11 years before the Swan King (now known as “Mad King” Ludwig II) could have used Liebig’s expert advice–for it was in 1884 that King Ludwig II began moving into Neuschwanstein (“new swan stone”), the fantastic fortress after which many Disney theme park castles have been patterned. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.)

Keynote Speaker: Welcome to the Future! Technology and Innovation at Disney

Jet packs, self-driving cars, universal translators, space tourism; many of the science fiction dreams of yesterday are on the verge of becoming realities of today and promise to transform the world of tomorrow. We have complex communicators/supercomputers in our pockets that would make Captain Kirk proud; robotic dogs that could play fetch with R2D2; and computers, though maybe not quite up to HAL 9000 standards, that can play a mean game of Jeopardy. (Still waiting for that flying car in every garage!) In a similar manner, advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual and augmented realities, and mobile technology are transforming the world of Disney and its theme parks. In this talk I will give an overview of some of the exciting new advances in technology and innovation in Disney theme parks. I will discuss the technology being used both in front of guests and behind the scenes. I will include examples and videos from some of the newest Disney attractions, many of which can be found right next door to the conference. I will also discuss some of the work being done in the area of immersive design and review at Walt Disney Imagineering, in Glendale CA. Welcome to the future! It's a great big beautiful tomorrow!

‘Locus of Control’: A Selective Review of Disney Theme Parks

Long held as the province of capitalist domination, the Disney parks have recently seen other trends of analysis emerge, providing renewed emphasis on user activity and the parks’ competitive environment. In this article, we identify three trends of research toward the Disney theme parks, with the ‘locus of control’ for the parks’ meaning, design, and operations placed successively within the Disney-controlled environment of the park, within the user, and, lastly, within the park’s wider socio-economic context.

Projection-Based Augmented Reality in Disney Theme Parks

Walt Disney Imagineering and Disney Research Zürich are building a projector- camera toolbox to help create spatially augmented 3D objects and dynamic, interactive spaces that enhance the theme park experience by immersing guests in magical worlds. A related video can be seen here: http://youtu.be/wjrylXl0tTk. It shows examples of projection-based augmented reality techniques being employed in Disney theme parks.

Can emergency physicians improve quality of care by using checklists and going HOME?

Can emergency physicians improve quality of care by using checklists and going HOME?

Innovative Knowledge Management At Disney: Human Capital And Queuing Solutions For Services

It is well known that most activities in which a service is provided require customers to wait in a queue during the experience. One thing that is inherent in waiting lines is the universal dislike for the process. In fact, the feelings and opinions developed in waiting lines influence the customers perception of the awaited experience. In this paper, Disney is used as a case study for queuing solutions. In particular, we examine their implementation of Knowledge Management (KM) solutions to improve the waiting line process. The use of Disney cast members as human capital combined with the knowledge of customer preferences has made the FASTPASS an innovative solution to enhance queuing in the Disney theme parks. In the past, KM has been thought of as the collection of technological assets and managerial policies that compensate for information failures. In fact, the individuals need for human interaction provides the richest opportunity for knowledge acquisition. Disneys ability to capture customers in virtual queues while giving them a pleasurable waiting experience has made them a leader in KM initiatives in the service industry.

A Review on Relation Between Operation Research and Different Field of Sciences

Operations research (OR) is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. By using techniques such as mathematical modeling to analyze complex situations. OR has enhanced organizations and experiences all around us. From better scheduling of airline crews to the design of waiting lines at Disney theme parks. OR is the interdisciplinary mathematical science, now a days OR are very useful in different ways like in project designing, mathematical modeling, statistical analysis and industrial engineering. In this article we review various paper and then define relation between OR and other branch of sciences. Keywords: Industrial engineering, Logistic, Management science, Operation research, Economics