GIRL CULTURE, GLOBAL MARKETING:਍ഀ DISNEY ENTERS AND PREDOMINATES IN CHILDREN’S TELEVISION

Angharad N. Valdivia (University of Illinois)

This paper explores the deployment of children’s television by Disney Corporation. Given that Disney is one of the major global media conglomerates, it enters a market with a goal to reach top market share in that market. In the US Disney ascended into that position through a combination of a tween focus with a sprinkling of ambiguous and light ethnic inclusivity. The former is a gendered approach, targeting pre-adolescent girls through programming and stars appealing to that newly constructed subject category. The latter uses lightly and ambiguously ethnic actors and characters who can appeal to a broad range of ethnicities without offending mainstream audiences. A major global hit such as High School Musical [I, II, and III] foreground both of these strategies.