geopractice

McDonaldization of Society

Yes, that topic again - McDonaldization. 
But why? Well, if we search on Yahoo there were almost 60,000 entry talking about it (as at late Aug '06). Book on it was published, revised and uses as textbook in many university courses. An example of such is offered in a sociology subject at csuchico.

I've posted an entry about its meaning and priciples. But will repeat here using material from another source.




The “McDonaldization” of Society

Where does the term McDonaldization originally come from? 
- The term McDonaldization was coined by George Ritzer who wrote a book about this essay. He saw a parallel between the thoughts in Max Weber’s theory and the system of McDonalds. Weber was a sociologist who followed a fast development in the western world getting more and more rational. With the term rational Weber meant the things that control and dominate the people. In his point of view that things were “efficiency, predictability, calculability,” and replacing human with technical workforce. Instead of using the more or less old fashioned word rationalization, Ritzer changed it into McDonaldization. Ritzer uses this term to describe modern aspects of the rationalization process.

What do you mean when you use the term of McDonaldization? 
- When you use the term of McDonaldization you mean the rational system which is behind the brand of McDonald’s. Ideas of this system already exist for a long time, but they were new ones for the food industry. For example, one of this ideas is based on the assembly line idea of Henry Ford. The idea was to save work force and make work more efficient. In case of McDonald’s, workers only have to do a simple and very special work, and there are no waiters in a McDonald’s restaurant. This rational system of McDonald’s somehow effects our society how it is mentioned in the heading. What other ideas are behind the system of McDonald’s and how they effect the process rationalization in society is to be explain somewhere in this site.

1. cf. Fort Lewis College: Ritzer’s McDonaldization Theory. http://student.fortlewis.edu/~smduresky/268project/page2.htm
2. cf. Calif:Pine Forge Press: Bureaucratization: Making Life More Rational, 7.05.03, http://www.stedwards.edu/bss/farrall/bureau.htm

Note: those links seem no longer active ...

posted by geopractice @ 6:54 PM