The McDonaldization of Society

The McDonaldization of Society

The McDonaldization of Society is so far the best selling sociology book since it was written by George Ritzer in 1993. His main objective in writing the book was to deeply analyze the concept of McDonaldization and also bring to light four key characteristics of McDonaldization. He described McDonaldization as the process in which the fast foods restaurant principles were taking over almost all the aspects of society. The two outstanding qualities of McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants is that they are more affordable and reliable. Therefore, they offer the best alternative to the always busy society since the 1950s compared to the labour-intensive home-cooked meals.

According to Ritzer, the four main characteristics of McDonaldization were; control, predictability, efficiency, and calculability. Ritzer described the principle of control as the way in which employees have to conduct themselves at the workplace like in the way they dress or follow instructions given to them. He argues that control is important in standardizing products and services and thus capturing a greater market. According to Ritzer, the idea behind predictability is giving people what they think they want. He argues, the idea helps in creating predictable sales and thus income as it builds some customer loyalty to your products, to the brand as well as creating repeat customers. The efficiency principle has to do with streamlining processes in the restaurant by making people spend the least time possible in acquiring services at the restaurant. Lastly, the calculability principle focuses on targeting the market segment that prefers quantity over quality or prefers acquiring more for less.

I totally agree with Ritzer that the world is getting McDonaldized. Currently, there are so many fast food establishments that apply McDonaldization principles and every day; many people are embracing the idea of having fast-food restaurants by valuing quantity, efficiency, and predictability. For instance, many people find it more convenient visiting a drive-thru just to get a morning coffee or simply visiting a McDonaldized place to get their car oil changed within minutes in the comfort of their cars.

The world is getting homogenized, and cultural differences are disappearing as a result of McDonaldization. According to Julien Cayla and Giana Eckhardt, common brand consumption experiences unite people globally more than having national belonging. Despite the issue of distance, the more people are able to consume and interact in a similar brand culture, the more they fee attached to each other. The sense of a global community that is brought about by oneness in global brand cultures as opposed to cultural diversity leads to the world being homogenized into one global village. Steger advocates that even though fast foods have brought about tendencies of homogenization in the world, there is a great possibility that cultural diversity in the land will vanish.

On analyzing most foods found in fast foods menus around the world, it is easier to notice that the styles have been improvised; instead of the foods being prepared with the same cultural ingredients to maintain their original context, they have been appropriated to meet the current standards of what people want as well as to meet the standards of the homogenized global village. Similarly, unlike in other local restaurants were staffs interact with the guest at a personal level and make their stay, as well as their meals enjoyable, in McDonaldized establishments employees, have been trained to follow certain scripts in service delivery. Surprisingly, people visiting such establishments are used to hearing the scripts, and they perhaps excite them.