Spectacular Nature

Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience
1. Auflage 1997
ISBN: 978-0-520-20981-7
Verlag: UCAL POD

Buch, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 445 g

Reihe: University of California Press

This is the story of Sea World, a theme park where the wonders of nature are performed, marketed, and sold. With its trademark star, Shamu the killer whale—as well as performing dolphins, pettable sting rays, and reproductions of pristine natural worlds—the park represents a careful coordination of shows, dioramas, rides, and concessions built around the theme of ocean life. Susan Davis analyzes the Sea World experience and the forces that produce it: the theme park industry; Southern California tourism; the privatization of urban space; and the increasing integration of advertising, entertainment, and education. The result is an engaging exploration of the role played by images of nature and animals in contemporary commercial culture, and a precise account of how Sea World and its parent corporation, Anheuser-Busch, succeed. Davis argues that Sea World builds its vision of nature around customers' worries and concerns about the environment, family relations, and education.

While Davis shows the many ways that Sea World monitors its audience and manipulates animals and landscapes to manufacture pleasure, she also explains the contradictions facing the enterprise in its campaign for a positive public identity. Shifting popular attitudes, animal rights activists, and environmental laws all pose practical and public relations challenges to the theme park. Davis confronts the park's vast operations with impressive insight and originality, revealing Sea World as both an industrial product and a phenomenon typical of contemporary American culture. Spectacular Nature opens an intriguing field of inquiry: the role of commercial entertainment in shaping public understandings of the environment and environmental problems.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Davis, Susan G.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Tourismus & Reise Tourismus & Reise: Ökonomie, Ökologie
• Naturwissenschaften Agrarwissenschaften Tierhaltung Jagd, Jagdindustrie
• Naturwissenschaften Agrarwissenschaften Tierhaltung Fischerei, Fischzucht, Aquakultur
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Dienstleistungssektor & Branchen Tourismuswirtschaft, Gastgewerbe
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltschutz, Umwelterhaltung
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biochemie (nichtmedizinisch)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

ONE
Another World: Theme Parks and Nature

TWO
The Park and the City

THREE
Producing the Sea World Experience: Landscape and Labor

FOUR
Enlightenment Lite: The Theme Park Classroom

FIVE
RiJutine Surprises: Producing Entertainment

SIX
Dreaming of Whales: The Shamu Show

Conclusion
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Susan G. Davis is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego.