Disney’s Board Oversees U.S. Cultural Development
The company founded by legendary animator Walt Disney is now a classic board-run corporation that maintains its intellectual property empire and influence on popular formation of values.
With a market capitalization of about $160 billion as of July 2023, the Walt Disney Company is one of the three largest entertainment companies in the world, alongside Netflix and Comcast.1 Once a self-contained animation studio and one of the oldest film studios in the world, Disney has expanded into a massive conglomerate that owns blockbuster film studios Pixar, Marvel Studios, and Lucasfilm, of Star Wars fame; TV networks including ABC and ESPN; multiple publishing imprints, multiple streaming services, and a global assortment of theme parks, cruise lines, resorts, and branded merchandise. Due to its prevalence and prestige in entertainment for children and their parents, Disney’s cultural influence amounts to a near-monopoly on the formation of values through media, and thus wields immense generational influence on popular understanding of social norms and even political legitimacy.