The article that I read was Disneyization, Debord, and Integrated NBA Spectacle by Davis L. Andrews. In the beginning of reading this article I was a little confused on what direction the article was going because it was mentioning how sports mostly basketball relate to the economy. After continuing further in the reading it all started to make a little more sense than it did when I was just reading the first couple of paragraphs. The similarity of sports and Disney World and the way it is advertised through society has definitely made a big impact since there ways of advertising are very much alike.As I continued in the reading Andrews stated that we are in a “post- industrial age” since we are living in a time that technology plays a major part in the world we live in today. We in society use so much technology because it seems to be the fastest way to get our ideas and thoughts as well as advertisements across to other people rather than sending mail across the world while keeping in mind that some people may not be able to receive the information that was sent, due to the fact that it may have gotten lost in the mail or something of that nature. In my perspective I feel as though that we have definitely considered the best way to advertise sports mostly speaking for basketball just like we do when we advertise for Disney World. It’s amazing how mass media can be used in the same perspective when dealing with two different types of what we call extra curricular activities. One of the most memorable things that I noticed after reading this article is when Stern mentions the similarities of the NBA and Disney World. It reads, “They have theme parks . . . and we have theme parks. Only we call them arenas. They have characters: Mickey Mouse, Goofy. Our characters are named Magic and Michael [Jordan]. Disney sells apparel; we sell apparel. They make home videos;
we make home videos. (David Stern, quoted in Swift 1991, 84).
January 22, 2008 at 10:18 pm
What do you think is the effect of this kind of reality that is created on our values? What does the marketing of fantasy do to how we live in the world – to how we behave with one another? Is it good, bad, or kind of neutral and why?
January 24, 2008 at 2:03 pm
When you think about it they use each other to promote each other too. Disney uses the NBA stars in their movies such as “Like Ike” I think it was and then the NBA uses Disney characters to get children involved in the sport.
Bonnie