From globalisation to glocalisation: A critical analysis of visual sign transformation in Disneyland’s global expansion

Disneyland has never been merely an amusement park; rather, it is a themed consumer space shaped by visual environments, which has become a central focus in studies of Disneyfication. However, with TWDC’s global expansion, existing studies on the globalisation of Disneyland have largely overlooked how visual symbols and themed spaces construct cultural meanings. Therefore, this study takes Disneyland Anaheim as the original visual paradigm and employs comparative case analysis and semiotic analysis to examine how this visual framework has been replicated, adjusted, and reconstructed across six Disneyland parks. The findings reveal that Disneyland Anaheim established a dual visual paradigm consisting of “American nostalgia” and the “Disney fairy-tale world.” Although this paradigm has been continued in Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland, it was fundamentally transformed in Shanghai Disneyland. By removing core American nostalgia symbols and incorporating Chinese cultural visual elements, Shanghai Disneyland reconstructed the Disney fairy-tale world within the Chinese cultural and political context. Therefore, this article argues that TWDC’s global expansion has moved beyond simple replication toward a glocalised visual strategy, where global brand narratives are reinterpreted and reconstructed through Disneyfication within specific local cultural contexts, creating new glocalised cultural spaces.