Work Project

Work Project

McDonaldization

The McDonaldization of everything faded a little bit from the forefront of American consciousness over the last five years, but the process is still there. Perhaps we have simply become used to it - that not only can you go to most any American city and experience the same stores, the same chains, the same food, but that you can travel throughout the world and have the same experiences as well. Or maybe it's because the rest of the world is fighting back. Really, we should call it MarcoPoloization, if we have to call it anything. McDonalds may have been the most prominent characteristic, but McDonaldization is not a new process. The process began the first time Neandertals met Cro-Magnons and traded. It'scultural transfer, just like the kind that occurred when Marco Polo accompanied monks and brought back spices (Cant, 2007).

The speed of adoption for successful trends and fads has increased sharply because it is so easy and fast to transmit cultural ideas across long distances. Those popular trends and fads - the mega-hits - are what we point at when we talk about McDonaldization. The mega-hits have something good about them - otherwise they wouldn't spread so successfully - but they crowded out local variations. Think about the desolation of Wal*Marts - and the number of small businesses destroyed by that behemoth - across the American landscape and you get the idea.

But we cannot forget the inseperable good things that come from fast cultural transmission. First, our ideals travel as fast as our icons and franchises. It's never a perfect transmission (kimchee on your Pizza Hut pizza, anyone?), but it's far faster and easier than what the monks who traveled with Marco Polo faced. When innovation happens, there are few physical barriers to the innovation spreading quickly ...