Globalization: Disneyization, McDonaldization, and Americanization

Ghita Salouane

Professor Ahmed Kabel

FAS 1220, Section 01

June 29, 2017

Globalization:

Disneyization, McDonaldization, and Americanization

        Assuming that there is such a concept as globalization, is its further development and advancement inevitable? Globalization is considered as the single greatest wave that has affected the whole world and connected millions of individuals, countries, cultures and technologies. The globalists argue that it is impossible, or at least nearly so, to find any country in the world absolutely unaffected by globalization. Businesses constantly work to make globalization happen because they will eventually have cheaper production costs and more consumers to sell to.

        The relationship between Americanization, McDonaldization and Disneyization is that they are all systems that are related to globalization, that is, they are all concerned with consumption since they all consist of producing and selling goods and services, whether it is done by a direct way or an indirect one. For example, Disney sells goods indirectly by putting logos of characters from Disney movies so that children would be influenced to buy it. Moreover, in Disneyland parks, customers must go through a shop before exiting the park so that they buy merchandise.  

The United States is producing merchandise that is being sent out to whatever remains of the world. Fast food restaurants and credit cards are far from being the only American exports that are fundamentally modifying the world, but they show that the United States has become nowadays in the business of creating, delivering and sending out sensational new methods of consumption. Whether people like it or not, everyone in this world is affected by America in a way or another; especially by their technologies and products that have become essential in the world we live in today.

Disneyization and McDonaldization can be both thought as parallel procedures rather seeing them as competent. They both give suitable records of a portion of the changes happening in today's society. Neither Disneyization nor McDonaldization gives an entire account, yet each one of them is intended to offer a springboard in order to understand some of the processes that are happening around us and to show case records of those processes. Consequently, these processes come to have life of their own and they happen to control people instead of being controlled by people. According to the chapter The Disneyization of society”, Disneyization has been painted as an arrangement of principles that address a consumerist world in which McDonaldization has fashioned homogeneity and in its place extends an atmosphere of choice and difference.

Globalization is an unstoppable force that has swept across the world and affected nearly everyone. It is a procedure that knows no limits and it cannot be stopped because global boundaries are vanishing and converging because of economic integration among nations. Disneyization, McDonaldization, and Americanization are all seen as globalizing forces because they are spread throughout the whole globe. According to the first chapter “General introduction to globalization”, globalization has become considered as fashionable and unfashionable at the same time. It has become fashionable because it is a frequently discussed topic in the literature on modern societies; and unfashionable because, due to globalization, more people are following trends, societies are being transformed to be closer to each other and have a lot of things in common which will make people consequently lose their cultural identities.

...