Corporate Image and the Establishment of Euro Disney: Mickey Mouse and the French Press.
Saved in:
| Title: | Corporate Image and the Establishment of Euro Disney: Mickey Mouse and the French Press. |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Forman, Janis |
| Source: | Technical Communication Quarterly. Sum 1998 7(3):247-258. |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 12 |
| Publication Date: | 1998 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Descriptors: | Content Analysis, Cross Cultural Studies, Cultural Context, Foreign Countries, Global Approach, Mass Media Role, Media Research, Organizational Communication, Press Opinion |
| ISSN: | 1057-2252 |
| Abstract: | Considers interweaving themes that characterized the construction of Euro Disney, drawing upon articles in the French press. Offers analysis of the historical context for and the implications of the park's construction, using the literature of French cultural studies and cross-cultural studies for support. Discusses possible consequences to the company of Disney's negative image in the French press. (PA) |
| Entry Date: | 1999 |
| Accession Number: | EJ573248 |
| Database: | ERIC |
|
Full text is not displayed to guests.
Login for full access.
|
|
| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwFc7YtTQF6SC_hzIqv-zdJKAAAA4TCB3gYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHQMIHNAgEAMIHHBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDL3Zxhrd0KdAYkfB2gIBEICBmbvEaa4Y6XrLwihzciQR0vfR8Jo5Or6xw7-wZOybr8FwGyo57Wla4F99vgxGpOFJDUuMmvMoqLmbBDlJi3pVj7CSxFy1nfl6iVJ8SDeRJ7crcMhVjvqwsDhOtaRTrzZBacXOvc_U36DYUAhuOhjeGDXuImSI2Bz-UlnKXdJMrQ38rvWQ8jOyOf2sXTv1T4Sq4LRMfAFX6Cjoyg== Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0001152297;TCQ01SUM.98;1998Nov05.15:50;v2.3</anid> <title id="AN0001152297-1">CORPORATE IMAGE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EURO DISNEY: MICKEY MOUSE AND THE FRENCH PRESS </title> <p>Janis Forman has published extensively on collaborative writing and on translation. Her recent work includes a study of the genre of the case write-up (with Jone Rymer), a study of strategic communication as persuasive storytelling, and a project on communication frameworks and practices as an important component of strategic implementation for organizations (with Paul Argenti). </p> <p>Drawing upon publications in the French press, this article considers three interweaving themes that characterized the construction of the Euro Disney park. It then offers an analysis of the historical context for and the implications of the park's construction, using the literature of French cultural studies and cross-cultural studies for support. It concludes with a discussion of the possible consequences to the company of Disney's negative image in the French press. </p> <p>While conducting research on French-U.S. cross-cultural business communications at the Pompidou library in Paris during the fall of 1992, I came upon a thick three-volume collection of French magazine and newspaper clippings on the building of Euro Disney--a theme park opened in April of that year about twenty miles outside of Paris--and on French perceptions and opinions of Disney and the theme park. Euro Disney was one component of Disney's larger European initiative in the early 1990s, including the establishment of a European headquarters in Paris to promote marketing opportunities for the full range of Disney products (for example, film, video, apparel, toys, and housewares) (Feinberg 2). </p> <p>After some debate about the site for a European theme park, Disney decided upon Marne-la-Val1ee, a region of sunflower and sugar-beet farmland and small villages located twenty miles east of Paris. This site was particularly appealing to Disney because it is within a six-hour drive for 109 million Europeans (Woodyard) and because the French government gave Disney several incentives to choose it, including the right to purchase 4,800 acres at a low price and to sell them at any price (Toy, Maremont, and Grover 61) and a tax break on ticket sales (Turner and Gumbel). In addition, the French government agreed to pay for the infrastructure necessary to support the park: a new subway stop, a high-speed train, and new roads (Fawcett 13). </p> <p>The treasure-trove of material at the Pompidou library became the basis for the study presented here on the "corporate image" of Disney, a quintessentially American institution, as it moved abroad to establish a theme park in the heart of Europe, and on the company's crosscultural faux pas in undertaking this expansion. By "corporate image," I refer to management researcher Charles Fombrun's notion of the ways that a company is recognized "by its name and by the many presentations it makes to describe its actions, its plans, and intentions" (<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref1">37</reflink>) as this image has been shaped, in this instance, by the media-especially by the French press, and, to a much lesser extent, by the American press. </p> <p>Drawing primarily on French magazines and newspapers, this article begins with a consideration of three interweaving themes that characterized the construction of Euro Disney: the perceived threat of Disney culture to French high culture and the outrage the park engendered in some French intellectual circles, Disney's acquisition of land and legal rights for development of the theme park and the ensuing fallout, and the rigidity in the company's employment policies and practices at the new park. The article then presents an analysis of the historical context for and the implications of the park's construction, using the literature of French cultural studies and cross-cultural communications for support. It concludes with a discussion of the possible consequences to the company of Disney's negative image. </p> <hd id="AN0001152297-2">Disney's Culture and French High Culture</hd> <p>In recognition of the importance that the French place on their language and culture, Disney appointed Robert Fitzpatrick as the head of its Euro Disney initiative. Fitzpatrick held a doctorate in French literature and was married to a French woman. Often acknowledged in the French press for his fluency in the language, he was assigned an unofficial role as a kind of goodwill ambassador. His appointment was viewed as a useful concession to certain segments of the Parisian intellectual community. </p> <p>Despite Fitzpatrick, however, much of the discussion in the French press about Euro Disney focused on the new venture as the latest version of American cultural imperialism. For example, JeanSebastien Stehli, a French correspondent in the United States for Le Point remarked that "The greatest danger [of the Euro Disney initiative] would be... a homogenization of culture" (<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref2">76</reflink>). Michel Serres, an internationally respected French scholar who has taught for many years in the United States, warned his French compatriots that their adoration and error-ridden adoption of the American idiom might result in irremediable loss to the French language and to the mind formed and cultivated by the language: it is very important that our grandchildren sing "Au clair de la lune" in French, that they learn about their traditions in French, in this difficult, subtle, and very refined language, which serves as a model for the deepest part of their psyche. We have lost our scientific language, we are in the process of losing our commercial language and that of our songs. If we're not careful, we will soon lose our philosophical language and even our language for raising our children. It's intolerable. I'm sixty years old, and, when I see all the American words on the walls of Paris, I want to protest. (<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref3">77</reflink>) </p> <p>More blunt and provocative than Serres, French commentator Marc Lambron bitterly denounced Disney's arrival on French soil: "Marx's influence at a low point and Freud's suspended, what remains? Wait Disney. The contemporary cogito with white gloves and two black ears" (<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref4">81</reflink>). Lambton feared that Disney cartoon figures would replace the memorable characters of French literary masterpieces in the minds and hearts of its citizens. For instance, he warned that emotionally moving episodes in Proust's In Search of Things Past for instance, the young child Marcel suffering as he waits and pines for his mother's kiss--might be crowded out of the French imagination and shared literary experience by stock figures from the Disney portfolio-"the death of Bambi's mother, Pinocchio's despair when decked out in the ears of an ass, Dumbo's tears in the circus cage" (<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref5">81</reflink>). To illustrate Disney's challenge, another critic, Yves Eudes, printed a photograph of the Mona Lisa transformed into an object of derision by wearing a pair of Mickey Mouse ears ("La societe Disney"). In addition, just before the opening of the park, the literary review of France's Le Figaro expressed concern about the ways that Disney characters distort European fairy tales (Tempest). </p> <p>A moderating strain also entered the French press, but as a minority point of view. One commentator, Jean-Francois Revel, cautioned against viewing French culture as so fragile that it would succumb to the creation of a park. He also pointed out similarities between Disney fantasy and French high culture. He emphasized the European roots of many of Disney's themes and the place of its creations in a well-respected tradition of literary imitation and cultural borrowing, which were practiced by Western writers as well as by Disney: </p> <p>There would not have been Latin comedy without Greek models nor the P1eiade school without Italian poetry .... Would we have asked a cultural minister under Henry II to dictate quotas to Ronsard authorizing him to imitate Petrarch only once a week and never on Saturday night? (<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref6">71</reflink>) </p> <p>Revel also surmised that the attacks leveled by the French press against Disney may have resulted in the French feeling a sense of cultural inferiority and an inability to create new myths. Another commentator, Patrick Wajsman, urged restraint in the country's reaction to the Disney venture, which was, as he argued, a newcomer to a land "that has known eighty kings and five republics" ("Vive Mickey!"). </p> <p>Both the French and American press noted that Disney's adjustments to French culture in Euro Disney were minor. Disney characters based upon European fairy tales have more prominence in the park than they do in the United States and the first language in the park is French ("Selling Mickey by the Pound" 46). Some of the European-based Disney figures also have French names; for instance, "Sleeping Beauty" is called "La belle au bois dormant" (Gomez 48). </p> <p>Minor concessions to French culture notwithstanding, the French press expressed alarm about the new park. French critic Yves Eudes even offered an in-depth analysis of the Disney culture and its potential threat to France. Using company documents, he described Disney's vision of itself as "a schoolmaster, a family advisor, a tutor on civic life" ('ia societe Disney"). He characterized the education provided by the organization as a particular version of American values and culture: "At Disneyland, the message that underlies all the others is the glorification of America, the Celebration of its history, of its power, of its way of life and its destiny" ("La 'culture Disney'"). Eudes also pointed out that within the United States, Disney's moral and cultural authority is demonstrated by its success in blurring distinctions between history and fantasy in service of re-inventing and dominating American history from a distinctively Disney perspective: </p> <p>It is at Disney World (Florida) that the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution of the United States took place with great show, presided over by a Supreme Court judge .... The chief of the U.S. Navy, Admiral John Lehman, chose Disney World as the place from which to address America's youth while combat airplanes created a contrail through the sky of the park; it was also at Disney World that the triumphal return of Nicholas Danikoff was officially celebrated, the American journalist accused of spying and imprisoned by the Soviets for a period of time. ("La 'culture Disney'") </p> <p>Disney's mandate, he added, is to spread its version of American values across the globe. As Eudes's entire analysis implied, it is this global ambition that posed a significant threat to French culture. </p> <hd id="AN0001152297-3">Marne-la-Vallee: The Site for Euro Disney</hd> <p>Although the construction of the theme park created opportunities for French industry and employment for French workers, the French press emphasized how Euro Disney was producing turmoil and severe hardship for the local inhabitants of Marne-la-Vallee, who, as reported in the French press, were not allowed to participate in negotiations between Disney and the French government (Hervaux). Remarks of the mayor of one small town in the area were representative: "I really had no information [about the decision to build Euro Disney in Marne-la-Vallee]" (Hervaux). In response to their exclusion from negotiations, local officials formed an association for the purpose of gathering information. </p> <p>To add to this chorus, ecologists voiced complaints about the threat of irreparable damage to the region (Vincenot 23), and an association of Parisian street fair vendors and performers protested the potential loss of their livelihood to Disney, demanding use of land near the site to hold fairs with French themes from the tales of Perrault or the fables of La Fontaine (Decleves 47). </p> <p>Personal testimonials of the locals also reflected their rage about the breakup of a French pastoral setting caused by Disney's arrival. A local farmer tacked notices on the route to the proposed site announcing, "Mickey, go home! Look at our fields and villages. A monster is at the gates" (Hervaux). Townspeople in one village decried the violent upheaval to the life of their town, a sacred place in which Joan of Arc was reported to have performed a miracle, the resurrection of a small child who had been dead for three days. Sympathy for the villages and outrage about the massive, precipitous urbanization to be inflicted upon them dominated the French press (Hervaux). Several small towns in the area (population 5,100) were expected to grow to two-thirds Disney employees (Kahn 80). </p> <p>Contractual problems with the construction of the park arose as well. A dozen or so French and other European companies involved in this work threatened to block entrance to the park on opening day to protest alleged contractual irregularities, such as poor project definition, excessive late penalties, and errors in the construction plans (Tatu, "Euro Disney"). As the president of one of these companies noted, "Nothing is regulated. The subcontractors have not been paid. The magic kingdom is leaving dead bodies in its path" (Tatu, "Euro Disney"). As a result of the companies' repeated threats to paralyze business, Disney paid additional fees to several of them and began negotiations with the rest (Echikson). </p> <hd id="AN0001152297-4">Disney's Employment Policies and Practices</hd> <p>Disney retained its U.S. employment policies and practices as it went about hiring and training 12,000 people in the six months before the theme park's opening (Kahn 79). The expectation that Disney's Anaheim and Orlando rules of conduct would pass invisibly into the French system was naive and resulted in significant reaction in the French press. What seems to have bothered-- ven enraged--prospective French employees the most were the rules of personal hygiene and conduct, as both the French and American press reported. </p> <p>Called "cast members," all Euro Disney employees are advised that their motto should be "We work while others have fun" ("Euro Disney S.C. A.") and are expected to work late into the night during the key tourist months. These company expectations are at odds with French employment practices concerning employee holidays and compensation for overtime. In addition, the dress code appeared to be particularly restrictive to the French. Among the rules, women are required to have natural-looking hair, to limit themselves to one ring on each hand, to wear very little make-up, and, if they wear earrings, to be sure that their diameter does not exceed two centimeters. Men need to have well-groomed hair that does not touch their collar, to limit themselves to one ring on each hand, to avoid beards and mustaches, and to conceal tatoos ("Euro Disney S.C. A."). </p> <p>Whereas the American press noted the conflict between the company's and French job candidates' assumptions about appropriate dress and manner, the French press described in detail people's outrage at Disney's requirements. For example, L'Economie published a three page personal testimonial by a French reporter, Natacha Tatu, who disguised herself as a Euro Disney job candidate to get an insider's view of the selection and training processes. Among her first impressions upon receiving a thirteen-page brochure of employee rules were that Disney was imposing "draconian criteria" for selection and operated with "quasi-stalinist management methods." She observed that three-quarters of the candidates were disqualified immediately after the first interview because they were not dressed suitably. Having herself gotten through the first round of interviews, she described how she was expected by Disney employees to view her new position as "the job of her life," even though it amounted to leading children onto the Flying Dumbo ride; moreover, for this position, she had to dress as a character from "Little House on the Prairie." Once hired, Tatu--as she described it--suffered through four days of indoctrination at Disney University, two days on learning the corporate culture, and two more on learning the four keys to Disney's success: security, courtesy, presentation, and efficiency. Taken as a whole, these maxims seemed to her to have more the force of a belief system--a credo--and a way of living than that of corporate slogans. In addition, her training introduced her to a set of Disney taboos: it is forbidden to smoke, eat, or drink in front of visitors and, especially, to argue with them or to use foul language for which immediate dismissal can be the consequence. She was also tested for her knowledge of Disney mythology: "Name the seven dwarfs in French, then in English." Her instructor, she noted, lacked any trace of spontaneity in word or affect; rather, she appeared to be a kind of corporate automaton spouting Disney truisms. Another new French recruit, asked about the requirement to smile at the tourists, remarked, "'The foreigners are used to being smiled at, but the French don't understand it. They think they are being taken for idiots'" (qtd. in Rees). </p> <p>Disney's approach to hiring and training incurred a host of legal as well as media responses in France. In a short article juxtaposed to her personal testimonial, Tatu quoted an official from the French Ministry of Employment who characterized the Disney approach to employee dress and behavior in France as "an awkward policy, directly transposed from the United States, which is poorly integrated into French culture." In another article in the French press, the company was accused of trying to "rewrite the French employment code," ("Quand Mickey Reecrit le Code du Travail") so that employees would be required to work on certain French holidays and so that Disney could deny supplementary wages for overtime. In several other articles that appeared in France, French legal authorities questioned Disney's right to place restrictions on dress and make-up in Euro Disney ("Des Epines pour Euro Disney") as well as the company's insistence that cast members sign a document outlining a code of rules for their appearance ("Euro Disney est poursuivi en justice par l'inspection du travail"). </p> <hd id="AN0001152297-5">The Negative Image of Disney in the French Press: Historical Antecedents and Possible Consequences</hd> <p>As the extended discussion of Euro Disney's establishment shows, the corporate image of Disney that emerged in elements of the French press reflected three dominant roles that the company seems to have represented to at least a portion of the French population: an American cultural imperialist, a destroyer of a French pastoral setting, and a totalitarian system impervious to the rights of employees as individuals. The following discussion places the print media's construction of Euro Disney's image in historical perspective, and presents an analysis of the media's position. It then identifies some of the possible consequences to the company of Disney's negative image in the press. </p> <hd1 id="AN0001152297-6"> Twentieth-Century French-American Relations and Disney's Negative Image </hd1> <p>The image of Disney in the French press has historical antecedents in Franco-American relations dating back to at least the early twenties. As Richard F. Kuisel explains in his extended study of these relations, elements of the French population rejected or welcomed "Americanization" in the form of American consumer products and American mass culture at different moments in France's recent history. Anti-American feeling, he argues, was often linked to French concern that their national identity was threatened by the potential of America's economic, political, and cultural dominance. French social commentator Dominique Frischer associates this concern on the part of the French with "France's suffering for not renouncing the grandeur of its past" (<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref7">29</reflink>). </p> <p>Those who resisted the U.S. presence in France often constructed the antagonism between the nations as the struggle between French individualism and American conformism, or between civilisation and consumerism (Kuisel 104). (Civilisation has a range of meanings, referring to French craftsmanship and high-quality goods, appreciation for high culture, and Gallic individualism, civic-mindedness, rationality, and skepticism [Kuisel 127].) </p> <p>The battle lines drawn in this fashion help explain the French outcry against Disney: its use of fantasy to stimulate spending, its disruption of the civilizing power of land cultivated for centuries, and its strict code of behavior and training methods that express corporate norms at the expense of the rights of individual employees. </p> <p>The entry of Coca-Cola, another quintessentially American product, into the French market foreshadowed some of Disney's problems. Over forty years before the opening of Euro Disney, CocaCola attempted to penetrate the French mass market and was condemned in some French quarters for competing with the French wine industry and for causing an onslaught of American-style mass advertising. It was even feared that Coca-Cola would be advertised on the facade of Notre Dame (Kuisel 55). </p> <p>To some extent, Euro Disney's establishment may have represented more of an onslaught than Coca-Cola's because Disney was perceived both as a cultural aggressor threatening to replace French high culture--and all that it stands for in terms of French pride and reputation--as well as an advocate of mass consumerism, Coca-Cola's "major sin." Moreover, unlike Coca-Cola, Disney's presence was not limited to consumer products; rather, it took up a physical space-French soil--that had been virtually untouched before construction of the park. </p> <p>The Coca-Cola situation may have receded into the background by the time of Euro Disney's arrival but, among certain French intellectuals (for example, Alain Touraine, Georges Elgozy, and Henri Lefebvre [Kuisel 188]), the problems to French civilization caused by mass consumerism generated discussion and concern as early as the late 1960s. Among others, the controversial French thinker Jean Baudrillard analyzes the dangers of a commodity culture in which consumption becomes the ethical order and replaces spirituality: "He [a person today, man or woman] must constantly be ready to actualize all of his potential, all of his capacity for consumption" ("Consumer Society" 48). The locus of this activity may be the shopping mall: "Here we are at the heart of consumption as the total organization of everyday life, as a complete homogenization" ("Consumer Society" 34). In a later essay ("Simulacra and Simulacrum"), Baudrillard turns to Disneyland as the perfect representation of an all-encompassing American consumer society: </p> <p>Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasm: pirates, the frontier, future world, etc .... The objective profile of the United States... may be traced throughout Disneyland .... All of its values are exalted here, in miniature and comic-strip form .... (171-72) </p> <p>Finally, Disney's emphasis on its own company discourse ran up against old, established French institutions like the French Academy, which has as one of its mandates the protection of the French language and culture from foreign words. Whereas Disney introduced a specialized language in training its new "cast members," the French Academy has tried to preserve the "purity" of the French language since publication of the first edition of its French dictionary in 1694. (Among other things, the French Academy has been particularly assiduous in finding French equivalents for English-language technical terms used worldwide [Frischer 135]). </p> <p>From one point of view, then, Euro Disney represented a set of meanings that evoked French resistance, as other symbols of the United States have done in the past: the dominance of everything American, and especially of American mass consumerism; the replacement of the "real," for instance, real castles, by "simulacrum," or fantasy that supposedly represents the real but does so for commercial purposes; and linguistic ethnocentrism on the part of the company, that is, the use of a corporate language that reinforces the insularity and control of the organization as a total social system and represents to the French the worst sort of American linguistic aggression toward the French language. </p> <hd1 id="AN0001152297-7"> The Role of the French Press in the Construction of Disney's Negative Image </hd1> <p>In his study of Franco-American relations, Kuisel notes the power of the "popularizers"--"prominent journalists, literati, and academics who directly and extensively addressed the issue of the American temptation and who shaped opinion" (<reflink idref="bib107" id="ref8">107</reflink>). Some of these popularizers fashioned the Euro Disney image in France. The roles that they assigned to Disney dominated discussion of Euro Disney's establishment in the French media, appearing in everything from cultural analyses of Disney to dramatized personal testimonials. Highly vocal and articulate keepers of tradition, these spokespeople feared that Disney represented a "total culture" that would replace France's national culture. Their antagonism was also fueled by what some of the press corps viewed as Disney's excessive controls of the information it released and the interviews it granted (Fawcett 13). </p> <p>Not surprisingly, in looking for provocative news stories, the French press searched for the dramas in Euro Disney's establishment-the struggle between French high culture and Disney's "consumer culture"; the losses suffered by displaced farmers and townspeople and the passing of a countryside ruined by construction of a fantasyland; and the outrage of construction companies denied their rights and of job candidates forced to give up personal liberties. </p> <p>Yet, there were other potential stories available too. These, however, were left untold: for instance, the story of how Disney could provide jobs in a country with a high unemployment rate, and the story of a France-based Disneyland attracting a multi-cultural workforce and customers from all over Europe. The absence of such stories in the newspapers of Paris Suggests the media's investment in a particular notion of the "French person" as someone who has a sense of national pride linked to language, culture, and land. Ironically, this monolingual, monocultural version of French culture closely resembles the self-contained, uniform, and authoritarian culture that this same media attributed to Disney. (See James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras on Disney's cult-like characteristics which support this French view, 127-31.) "Cultural purism," or the attitude of someone who is unwilling "to acknowledge or accept that a living culture constantly changes, constantly constructs itself, often through exchanges with other distinct cultures" (Weiss 202), characterized both Euro Disney and those who constructed this image in the French press. </p> <hd1 id="AN0001152297-8"> The Consequences to Disney of Euro Disney's Negative Image in the French Press </hd1> <p>The impact of Disney on the French and other Europeans far exceeded that of the French press in regard to the success of the park. The French media's attacks notwithstanding, attendance at the park was high from the start, nearly one million visitors a month (Hartley 119). One must conclude from these numbers that, despite the criticism of a vocal segment of French society, the "popularizers" did not significantly influence other segments of society that enjoyed Disney products and experiences. In fact, the French are the biggest consumers of Disney products in Europe: "10 million French children read the comic book Le Journal de Mickey every week" ("Le Monde According to Mickey"). </p> <p>When organizations attempt to implement a strategy, they need to identify all the relevant constituencies and determine which need to be satisfied and which will be less satisfied or even dissatisfied with the strategy. (See Paul A. Argenti for a framework identifying an organization's relevant constituencies.) When Disney began construction of Euro Disney as part of the company's strategic initiative in Europe, the company was well aware that Disney characters and stories and the company's strong corporate culture might be offensive to some segments of the Parisian intellectual community. On the basis of the park's popularity, however, it is evident that Disney had appropriately focused on one constituency--its European customer base--and more or less ignored the criticism of another, the French press. Moreover, the French media's failure to dissuade people from attending the park suggests that the power of the press to harm Euro Disney's prospects was negligible and that the values it represents may be anachronistic, vestigial traces of a France of yesteryear. </p> <hd1 id="AN0001152297-9"> Note </hd1> <p>The research for this article was supported by the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. Only partial bibliographical information was available for some of the French publications. All French references can be found in the Pompidou library in Paris. I have translated all texts originally written in French. </p> <hd id="AN0001152297-10">Works Cited</hd> <p>Argenti, Paul A. Corporate Communications. 2nd ed. Burr Ridge, ]L: Mc-Graw Hill-Irwin, 1998. </p> <p>Baudrillard, Jean. "Consumer Society." Selected Writings. Trans. Jacques Morrain. Ed. Mark Poster. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1983. 29-56. </p> <p>--. "Simulacra and Simulations." Selected Writings. Trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman. Ed. Mark Poster. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1983. 166-84. </p> <p>Collins, James C., and Jerry I. Porras. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. New York: Harper, 1994. </p> <p>Decleves, Anne. "Gavroche: Je suis tombe par terre. C'est la faute de Mickey." La Vie 17 Feb. 1989: 46-47. </p> <p>Echikson, Bill. "Disney's Rough Ride in France." Fortune 23 Mar. 1992: 14+. "Des Epines pour Euro Disney." Le Figaro 4 Dec. 1991: N. pug. </p> <p>Eudes, Yves. "La 'culture Disney' a la conquite d'un parc-tremplin en Europe." Le monde diplomatique Feb. 1988: N. pug. </p> <p>--. "La societe Disney, un modele de 'communication totale.'" [French publication, title unknown] n. d.: N. pug. "Euro Disney est poursuivi en justice par l'inspection du travail." Le Monde n.d.: N. pug. "Euro Disney S.C. A." Euro Disney Casting. Paris: N.p., 1992. </p> <p>Fawcett, Karen. "The (PR) Mouse That Roared--in Six Languages." Communication World Dec. 1992: 13-16. </p> <p>Feinberg, Barbara. Dennis Hightower and the Walt Disney Company in Europe. Boston: Harvard Business School P, 1989. </p> <p>Fombrun, Charles. Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image. Boston: Harvard Business School P, 1996. </p> <p></p> <p>Frischer, Dominique. France vue d'en face: L'image de la France analysee et jugee par des etrangers. Paris: Editions Robert Lafont, 1993. </p> <p>Gomez, Edward M. "Monsieur Mickey." Time 25 Mar. 1991: 48-49. </p> <p>Hartley, Robert F. Marketing Mistakes. 6th ed. New York: Wiley, 1995. </p> <p>Hervaux, Yves. "Le Rive Americain aux Portes de Paris." Le Quotidien de Paris 16 Jan. 1986: 16+. </p> <p>Kahn, Annette. "Quand Disney Rive Europeen." Le Point 21 Mar. 1992: 78-80. </p> <p>Kuisel, Richard F. Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. </p> <p>Lambron, Marc. "Le Pape Mickey." Le Point 21 Mar. 1992: 81. </p> <p>"Le Monde According to Mickey." New York Times 12 Apr. 1992: S2, H33. </p> <p>"Quand Mickey Reecrit le Code du Travail." Liberation 27 Dec. 1985: N. pag. </p> <p>Rees, Jenny. "The Mouse That Ate France." National Review 11 May 1992: 57+. </p> <p>Revel, Jean-Francois. "Culture ne craignons pas l'Amerique." Le Point 21 Mar. 1992: 70-73. </p> <p>"Selling Mickey by the Pound." New Statesman and Society 5 Jan. 1990: 46-48. </p> <p>Serres, Michel. Interview. "La langue francaise doit faire de la resistance." Le Point 21 Mar. 1992: 77. </p> <p>Stehli, Jean-Sebastien. "La Culture Cartoon." Le Point 21 Mar. 1992: 74-76. </p> <p>Tatu, Natacha. "Ce que j'ai vecu chez Disney." L'Economie 20-26 Feb. 1992: N. pag. </p> <p>--. "Euro Disney: L'Oncle Picsou Refuse l'Addition." Nouvel Observateur 25 Mar. 1992: N. pag. </p> <p>Tempest, Ron. "Cultural Clash, SigAlert Fears Herald Disney 'Madness.'" Los Ange/es Times 10 Apr. 1992: A5. </p> <p>Toy, Stewart, Mark Maremont, and Ronald Grover. "An American in Paris: Can Disney Confound Doubters and Work Its Familiar Magic in Europe?" Business Week 12 Mar. 1990: 60+. Turner, Richard, and Peter Gumbel. "As Euro Disney Braces for Its </p> <p>Grand Opening, the French Go Goofy." Wall Street Journal 10 Apr. 1992: A+. </p> <p>Vincenot, Alain. "Les Nouvelles Propositions des Francais aux Americains." Le Quotidien de Paris 2 Apr. 1986: 23+. </p> <p>Wajsman, Patrick. "Vive Mickey!" Le Figaro 27 Mar. 1992: N. pag. </p> <p>Weiss, Timothy. '"The Gods Must Be Crazy': The Challenge of the Intercultural." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 7 (1993): 196-217. </p> <p>Woodyard, Chris. "Disney: $4.4-Billion Park." Los Angeles Times 5 Apr. 1992: D1+. </p> <aug> <p>By Janis Forman, Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA </p> <p></p> <p>Janis Forman, Director of Management Communication at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, received the Association for Business Communication's Researcher of the Year Award in 1995. </p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib76" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib77" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib81" firstref="ref4"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib71" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib107" firstref="ref8"></nolink> |
|---|---|
| Header | DbId: eric DbLabel: ERIC An: EJ573248 AccessLevel: 3 PubType: Academic Journal PubTypeId: academicJournal PreciseRelevancyScore: 0 |
| IllustrationInfo | |
| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Corporate Image and the Establishment of Euro Disney: Mickey Mouse and the French Press. – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Forman%2C+Janis%22">Forman, Janis</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Technical+Communication+Quarterly%22"><i>Technical Communication Quarterly</i></searchLink>. Sum 1998 7(3):247-258. – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 12 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 1998 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Content+Analysis%22">Content Analysis</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cross+Cultural+Studies%22">Cross Cultural Studies</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Cultural+Context%22">Cultural Context</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Global+Approach%22">Global Approach</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Mass+Media+Role%22">Mass Media Role</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Media+Research%22">Media Research</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Organizational+Communication%22">Organizational Communication</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Press+Opinion%22">Press Opinion</searchLink> – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 1057-2252 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: Considers interweaving themes that characterized the construction of Euro Disney, drawing upon articles in the French press. Offers analysis of the historical context for and the implications of the park's construction, using the literature of French cultural studies and cross-cultural studies for support. Discusses possible consequences to the company of Disney's negative image in the French press. (PA) – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 1999 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ573248 |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ573248 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 12 StartPage: 247 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Content Analysis Type: general – SubjectFull: Cross Cultural Studies Type: general – SubjectFull: Cultural Context Type: general – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries Type: general – SubjectFull: Global Approach Type: general – SubjectFull: Mass Media Role Type: general – SubjectFull: Media Research Type: general – SubjectFull: Organizational Communication Type: general – SubjectFull: Press Opinion Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Corporate Image and the Establishment of Euro Disney: Mickey Mouse and the French Press. Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Forman, Janis IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 1998 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 1057-2252 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 7 – Type: issue Value: 3 Titles: – TitleFull: Technical Communication Quarterly Type: main |
| ResultId | 1 |
