Within the Heart of the Media

M-I-C-K-E-Y.... M-O-U-S-E! Disney Inc. Who owns what?

Today we are surrounded by so many major media companies such as; Wal-mart, Time Warner, Toyota, McDonalds and even Disney. Disney Inc is known by most people for its movies and amusement parks, although that is definitely not all Disney owns. Beginning with film, Disney owns about six different film corporations such as; Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax Films and Pixar. Disney also owns a big part of cable television, they own ESPN, ABC family, Disney Channel, SOAPnet, while partially owning stations such as; Lifetime, A&E and E!. Disney owns books, radio stations, music records, magazines, parks and resorts, different lines of toys while the list goes on and on. Yes Disney is a greatly developed company that owns its share in different aspects of the media but there are implications when it comes to cross media ownership. When looking at the board of directors and owners of Disney it can be noted that many of them have worked and have been presidents for other companies. For example, George W. Bodenheimer is the Co-Chairman of Disney media networks, President of ESPN Inc. and ABC Sports, and Chairman on the ESPN board of directors. When it comes to cross media ownership, information can be passed back and forth between the companies, so do we really know where our importance in each company lies? It can become dangerous when information is transferred between companies, and although we might think that company’s ideas are original or one of a kind they might not be. For example as it is explained in Lawrence Lessing’s Free Culture the idea of the character Mickey Mouse was not Disney’s original idea. It was taken from the character of Willie the Steamboat and was then evolved into the fun lovely mouse character we know today, Mickey Mouse. Many ideas from companies are not always original and it is the company’s duty to make sure that their ideas are real and unique which shows in Disney’s creation of characters such as Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, Bambi, Dumbo. And the list goes on; “ Walt Disney creativity- a form of expression and genius that builds upon the culture around us and makes it something different.” (Lessing)

Works Cited

Who Owns What: the Walt Disney Company. ‘Columbia Journalism Review’ http://cjrarchives.org/tools/owners/disney.asp
‘Walt Disney Company Management Team’ http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/management_team.html
Free Culture; The Nature and Future of Creativity, Lawrence Lessig

posted by Brittany Pacitti's Mass Communications @ 6:04 AM