Disney in reality has much less control over our culture than many other companies, including many other media companies. The fact of their purchasing Lucasfilm doesn't change that. It's alarmist to suggest that owning Star Wars is going to give Disney some kind of undue influence. If anything, it's likely to improve that terribly corrupted and besmirched franchise.
Every American sits and stares passively at ABC television for about 6 hours per week, every week. It's totally silly to suggest that that could have any effect on culture though, right?
Think about it with an analogy. Google is more valuable than Facebook, despite the huge amount of time people spend engaged with Facebook, because Google's users come to the site with a task that inherently equates with purchasing intent. It is possible to capture a great deal of people's attention without changing their decisionmaking process.
I dispute that there are many judgements people make that use Disney media properties as a resource. The Internet is already a far more influential force on our culture than any mass-media property is.
(a) Coca Cola employs many thousands of marketing people who must, to justify their salary, come up with venues to feature the Coke brand.
(b) Mass marketing is notoriously terrible with metrics, so it's not an extraordinary claim to suggest that maybe Coke is investing in some marketing that doesn't much help it.
(c) Coke's business model has as much to do with its distribution system --- the fact that they can get a Coke into the hands of virtually any person on the planet in minutes --- as it does with its brand.
(d) Copyrights and trademarks mean that motion pictures need to acquire the rights to feature many (in a Spielberg film, perhaps all) of the brands shown on screen, which creates a venue in which major brands like Coke are consulted as a matter of course simply because either they or their competitors need to be shown simply to create verisimilitude.
My biggest argument against media consolidation, though, is that I simply don't trust any one entity with significant centralized power. While Disney+Lucasfilm is probably a pretty good fit for business and entertainment reasons, the sheer size of the various conglomerates is astounding.
And don't think for a minute that there isn't blatant propaganda in some TV shows, even if the propaganda isn't coherent within a single media conglomerate. The example I found most bothersome was the justly canceled TV series "V", which had extremely overt xenophobic allusions to issues of the day, like illegal immigration and foreign policy.
My kids get their "bearings" from their Judeo/Christian upbringing, both at home and at school. That is their "culture", not the characters they see in Disney movies. Looking over the list of recent Disney movies, the themes I pick out are "individuality, loyalty, determination, perseverance." All of which are reflective of our culture, and all of which fly completely over the heads of small kids.
Disney has the power and money to hire whole teams of psychologist to analyze how to very subliminally affect their movies in such a way that the merchandise etc will sell more, bringing more and more cash in their pockets.
Take for example Donald Duck (in the cartoons). He is always depicted as a unlucky main protagonist who is being ruled by the rich Scrooge. No matter what he does or how much he works, he never becomes in control of his own life, usually being controlled by the Rich Banker Uncle Scrooge.
This tells our children that no matter what you do, you will always be controlled by those who have more money and can tell you to do whatever they please. Not in so direct way, but in a more subtle way it creates a world view that keeps this model in it's current place.
But this is not the main point, the main point is that for Disney and these other big companies, money goes beyond anything. This affects deeply their moral values that are put into their products and what motivation is being the driving force behind producing their movies. It's not the great stories, or changing the world, but about money. This is not a good thing, from many viewpoints. They are not focusing on sustainability, but on maximizing their incomes. This is reflected to all those little children who watch their movies or cartoons.
Those who own Disney are those with great money in their pockets. They will want to keep us passive consumers who will be hooked into their stories (which many are just copies from folk tales, like the Lion King which a pretty much direct copy from the story of Kimba the White Lion) and sell us Toys & Fast Food.
Have you seen the movies these days ? It's all about selling more copies of DVD:s of the latest blockbuster movie to the parents of the children. First creating a need in these children to look up to these movies and characters, then telling them that there are toys, sugar & caffeine filled drinks and fast food available related to these characters, hooking them (literally with caffeine, sugar, fat) to these products and the feelings related to those.
Think about it. Really. Do you want Disney to be raising your children ?
Good day to you sir.
Google and Disney clearly have two very different set of influences, but to imply that Disney has little control is simply wrong. Ultimately the buck stops with our various representatives, but Disney has some serious skin in the game of keeping the status quo intact.
Suffice to say, their "Disney Vault" promotional tactic couldn't exist in a world where (what most people consider) sane copyright laws existed, and I've yet to see an argument that reasonably suggests that kind of behavior is good for our culture.