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...McDonaldization,...is the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world. (Ritzer, 1993:1)
Since 1955 McDonald's has grown to 31,967 outlets worldwide (Ritzer 2011:2).The central concepts employed in the fast-food industry have spread to all types of restaurants. Everything from pizza to lobster, from ice cream to bread, from alcohol to fried chicken is dominated by the Chain mentality.
We no longer have to go to the chains. They have come to us. They are in the suburbs, the central cities, the malls, our schools and military bases, our hospitals and airports, even our airplanes and ballparks. They dominate our highway interchanges-every exit looks the same.
It's not only the food industry that represents this process of McDonaldization.
Toy stores (Toys R Us)
Bookstores (B. Dalton's)
Newspapers (USA Today)
child care (Kinder Care)
learning (Sylvan Learning Centers)
"In the 1980s and 1990s McDonaldization has extended its reach into more and more regions of society, and those areas are increasingly remote from the heart of the fast-food business." (Ritzer 1994:137)
Each new spin-off serves to further extend the process. The "news bites" of USA Today have changed the way most local papers present the news, perhaps even the way we see and hear the news on TV-take a look at Headline Network News. And even the way "news" is constructed-work of PR managers and press releases.
Check out McDonaldization.Com for a variety of resources on the McDonalization thesis.
Theorizing/Resisting McDonaldization: A Multiperspectivist Approach, Douglas Kellner, Illuminations: The Critical Theory Project, from: "Theorizing McDonaldization: A Multiperspectivist Approach," in Resisting McDonaldization, edited by Barry Smart. London: Sage Publications, 1999: 186-206.
Sources: The above information was drawn from two works by George Ritzer:
Sociological Beginnings: On the Origins of Key Ideas in Sociology, McGraw-Hill, 1994.
The McDonaldization of Society, 6th edition Pine Forge Press, 2011.
The quote from Margaret Vissner, taken from Ritzer's presentation is found in:
"A Meditation on the Microwave," Psychology Today, December 1989, pp. 38ff.
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