Since 1955 McDonald's has grown to over
31,000 outlets
worldwide (2003).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 and even the funeral services are dominated by
the Chain mentality.
We no longer have to go to the chains. They
have come to us. They are in the burbs, the central cities, the shopping malls, on the internet, in our institutions of education and on our military bases world wide, they are even in our hospitals and at our airports.
The food industry is not the only industry that
represents this process of McDonaldization. You will find McDonaldization at Toy stores , Bookstores Newspapers ; five major corporations control the press of the USA.
"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)
Ritzer outlines five dominant themes within
this McDonaldization process: Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability,
Increased Control, and the Replacement of Human by Non-human Technology.
- KBOO