Part IIa:
Commodity Culture: McDonald’s
(Office: GE319; Ext.: 7443)
1.
What is commodity? Why do we need to talk about commodity culture?
1.1.
Commodity and social institution
1.1.1.
Commodity refers to the goods or services produced
for economic transaction.
Everything you can buy or sell at a price in the market is
commodity.
1.1.2.
Non-Commodified goods or services: e.g. housewife
doing housework. Usually she does
not earn a regular wage paid by her husband or other family members.
1.1.3.
Commodity’s nature depends on social institution and
social relations: e.g. housewife and housemaid
1.2.
Commodity market: a self-regulating market?
1.2.1.
Economics textbook viewpoint: demand and supply
determined by “the law of market” (About the critique of the notion of
“self-regulating” market, please read 許寶強2002)
1.2.2.
Alternative approach: a detailed description of
commodity production, distribution, circulation and consumption
1.2.3.
Searching for the social relations (historical and
socio-cultural) behind the commodity world
1.2.4.
Example: Why do we need “marketing strategy”? Every businessman knows that in
reality, commodity transaction would not happen automatically according to the
law of market. All companies work
very hard to create and increase people’s demand and shape people’s way of life
and consumption.
1.3.
Commodity fetishism and “globalization”
1.3.1.
The belief in the law of market or “economic law” can
be called commodity fetishism.
1.3.2.
Our task is to demystify the fictional world of
commodity and goes into the social relations behind it.
1.3.3.
Globalization is often understood as a steady
expansion of commodity production and circulation. If it’s true, this is not an automatic result. Instead, there might be some social
mechanism behind it.
1.3.4.
Social relations and human interactions really
matter.
2. Case
study: McDonald’s
2.1. History:
-In 1954, Ray Kroc invested in milk shake maker and
invested in the hamburger stand run by brothers Dick McDonald and Mac
McDonald. Kroc began the first
franchising restaurant in 1955 (Des Plaines, Illinois).
-In 1963, the sales of hamburger reached 1 million a
day.
-In 1975, the first drive-through operation started
while the first shop opened in Hong Kong.
-In 2002, there are 208 outlets in Hong Kong.
2.2. Standardization: There is a 600 pages Operation
and Training Manual. Each kind
of food is cooked and served in a standard way or more precisely in an
industrial way.
2.3.
Industrialization: There is no chef in this
restaurant and it produced food in the way of factory’s assembly line.
“McDonald’s sells … … a system, not products.”
(Robert Kwan, Managing Director of McDonald’s in Singapore, 1993)
2.4. Educating customers
-Queuing-self-provisioning, self-seating
-Egalitarian model: customers interact with the
service workers face-to-face.
-Cleanliness, efficiency, reliability and hygiene become
the criteria for judging a restaurant.
For example, McDonald’s toilet in Hong Kong (1970s).
Although the headquarter in the US attempts to sell a
specific culture of food to everywhere, the company president and the local
franchisers are very sensitive to the local taste and situation. The president even rejects the idea of
“multinational”. The goal of McDonald’s “becomes as much a part of
the local culture as possible … … People call us a multinational. I like to call us multilocal.”
(James Cantalupo, President McDonald’s International
1991)
2.5. McDonald’s in Hong Kong
(http://www.mcdonalds.com.hk)
2.5.1. 漢堡包=hamburger?
In Hong Kong, at least during the 1970s and 1980s,
hamburger is a sort of heavy snack rather than ordinary meal.
2.5.2. McDonald’s vs. Chinese restaurant: Young
people and children vs. Adult: Freedom vs. Constrain
2.5.3. Restaurant as a youth center and community
center: According to a survey in 1995, Hong Kong people take 20-25 minutes for
a meal in McDonald’s.
2.5.4. The rise of McDonald’s is parallel to the rise
of the new generation and their consumption power (In 1995, there was a survey
pointing out that Hong Kong teenagers had U$105 as pocket money per
month).
2.5.5. McDonald’s as a public space and a private
space for youth.
2.5.6. McDonald’s targeting at children and children
culture: birthday party
2.6. McLibel: http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/index.html
3. Commodity
culture
3.1.
Commodity culture is a very sophisticated cultural
management or even social engineering although many people are not conscious
of.
3.2.
Consumers do not fully accept the cultural management
by the multinationals. They adjust
their own everyday life and make creative use of the dominant culture.
3.3.
If these commodity cultures represent the influence
of global power, they also imply localization. Local cultures do not remain unchanged; instead they
transform themselves to counter against, to adapt to, to make use of, and to
transform the dominant and global cultural industry.
Multimedia
The Best of Broadcast Commercials: Sneakers,
Laptops, and the Homeless. (Films for the Humanities & Sciences)
AVV659.14 SNEA
Appendix:
An exercise for next week discussion
Find out the origin of the word “Mall” from internet or other sources.