In this blog we will discuss and expand on the concept of Mcdonaldization, yes that is an actual word, at least for this blog post and this book on pop culture. Mcdonaldization is a way of thinking about contemporary forms of capitalist production. In more simple terms it is the process of creating phenomena and making sure they are accessible to as many people as possible, as efficiently possible through routinizing the way it is marketed and obtained. This is done with four different components involved: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control through Nonhuman Technology and Deskilling of the Labor Force. As mentioned in the book “Pop Culture Freaks” Harry Potter, while it was just coming out, was distributed to every major bookseller and that the series would be featured in some way in the front or even outside the store. It became such a phenomenon that the series had 64 different publishers just to make sure as many copies as possible were produced and sent to all major book sellers. Another pop culture phenomenon can be seen in Star Wars and how ridiculous their marketing is. It would be a challenge to find someone in almost any country that has not at least heard of Star Wars, they have so much money put into merchandising and advertisements that there is no way to really avoid at least hearing about it. Mcdonaldization causes an issue by giving big corporations that own the companies that serve as publishers or media outlets even more power with the way media is obtained and produced with no credit being given to the laborers that work at the printing presses for the most popular book series or the people who create the merchandise for companies like Lucas Films. Not only do they get a lot less recognition and credit but their jobs have become a lot more mindless and require a lot less skill than they did say 20-30 years ago. A downside that comes with culture phenomena is the copy cat effect of everyone copying the same marketing strategies or creativity put behind something like Star Wars, The Percy Jackson series, or Harry Potter. This only hurts the labor force all around the world when big companies see the mostly automatic and skill-less process of spreading these forms of media across the globe and taking more power away from the laborer. Not only does that happen, but whatever industry the phenomena is involved in will likely see a drop in quality due to everyone trying to achieve the famous status of the pop culture legends in their respective industry.
~Protect the penguins! and I have never used the word phenomena or phenomenon this much throughout my life