Institutional Image

Why exactly are some institutions viewed in an extremely positive light while others are viewed negatively? As discussed in HIST 212, one of the main factors that contribute to this disparity is the kind of historical sources that are used to provide background for the particular institution. Whether those sources are kept in a private archive, available to the public, or only available in a particular country, they play a large role in shaping what people think about specific companies and establishments. For example, the article Corporate Image and the Establishment of Euro Disney: Mickey Mouse and the French Press by Janis Forman talks specifically about how sources created by the French press painted a very different, more negative picture of Disney than the ones created by the American press.

Forman’s article focuses on Disney’s 1992 attempt to establish a theme park in France and the social and cultural problems that were created while trying to meet this goal. Throughout the article, she addresses the ways in which the French and American reporters covered the move, like on page 250 where she states that both groups of reporters addressed the fact that Disney was making minor efforts to combine French and American culture throughout the park. One of the largest disparities that Forman notes is on pages 252 and 253 where she talks about the problems associated with Disney’s employee dress code and behavioral policy. On page 252 she states, “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.” In other words, the American press made the cultural clash over attire and demeanor seem small and insignificant whereas the French press noted how important this clash was both to the employees and wider community. Forman goes on to talk on page 253 about how the press reports made the French people see Disney as a greedy, cultural imperialist, while the American people retained a positive outlook of the organization.

So how exactly do these newspaper articles relate to archives and how institutions are viewed by the public? As discussed in class, archives are essentially a collection of sources that typically deal with a specific historical topic, like the history of Disney’s French theme park. In this sense, the newspaper articles about Disney’s time in France serve as sources for the archive on Disney’s French history, but there is a catch: the English and French sources are filed differently. More specifically, the English press releases go into the American archive and the French press releases go into the French one. Since Forman suggests that the English reporters had a more favorable interpretation of Disney in 1992, it is clear that the American archives are more likely to have mostly positive sources that make Disney seem great, while the French archives probably have a more cynical outlook on the park. For historians, this act of splitting up the information makes it hard to get a fully accurate account of Disney’s time in France because most people would not have the information in both archives.

In addition, since Disney is a United States-based company, people studying the organization’s past may have an easier time accessing the more positive, American-centered sources as opposed to the more negative, French-based ones. The lopsided availability of information could lead to more people thinking highly of Disney and never really knowing about the more negative side of the story. In contrast, scholars researching Disney in the French archives will undoubtedly only see the company in a negative light because, as Forman states on pages 255 and 256, none of the French sources mention the positive impact of Disney’s park on the French people. This act of splitting up information is similar to the way in which many institutions set up their own archives. The only difference is that instead of having American and French archives, they only have an American one. To put it another way, the institution may edit what kinds of historical sources that get placed into the archive so that the organization appears to be more trustworthy and respectable than it really is. If archives have not been edited, there is a possibility that unfavorable information may be recorded, yet kept slightly out of sight from future researchers.

As historians, it is important to keep these ideas in mind while doing research on institutions. Not all archives are built to capture the whole truth, but instead to focus on a specific part of the institution’s past. If the archive does contain the whole truth, it may take a great deal of digging to fully understand the pros and cons of the organization’s past. While there is little researchers today can do about the information that was saved in the past, they can still do a great deal with the information they have available to them. In the same way that Janis Forman reconstructed a more complete history of Disney’s time in France, historians working in institutional archives today will also be able to construct a more accurate representation of their organization’s past. While the availability of sources in archives may sway a historian to form a particular viewpoint, they can often gain a more representative view of their subject by getting more creative with their research methods.

To learn more about Forman’s article, please check out the following information and included link. Warning: Membership may be required to access this article.

Forman, Janis. “Corporate Image and the Establishment of Euro Disney: Mickey Mouse and the French Press.” Technical Communication Quarterly 7, no. 3 (1998): 247-58. doi:10.1080/10572259809364629. https://ursinuscollege.on.worldcat.org/oclc/4893953708