Critical Issues in the Event Industry

In the following essay, all the necessary resources will implement to do the best critical evaluation of a contemporary issue facing today’s international event world. As a core subject chosen: the impact of the Macdonalization and the Disneyization on our actual society. The previous subject had been picked simply because in the past years while travelling, people begin to realise that Mcdonald was everywhere. I haven’t realised before how present and imposing was this brand outside America.

Even if we are obviously used to rub shoulders with McDonalds restaurants in daily life, we basically never noticed the extent of the brand before going through the world. Furthermore It has to be noted how great McDonalds is to adapt to cultures and countries: special meals, different names (Mc Maharaja in India for example), according to customs and diets. It’s directly from this amazing internationalisation that ensues the terms McDonalisation and Disneyization. ADD description of how will be constructed the essay

The normalisation and transportation of those brands around the whole world can be explained, intelligibly, through the principle of Globalisation. Indeed before to continue into a deeper interpretation of this subject, it sounds crucial to define the main terms of the following composition, which are issues, Globalisation, Mcdonalisation and Disneyization; furthermore along the discussion will also be detailed the term of Americanization and standardization without which the main subject won’t be deeply developed.

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Firstly, what is an issue? According to the 2012 Oxford Dictionnary, an issue is « a point or matter of discussion, debate, or dispute » and also « a matter of public concern ». Something, which may go against the current, may surprise and bother the public opinion. According to my knowledge, an ‘issue’ has a negative meaning but this not involve automatically something insurmountable.

In our subject the feature of public concern is obvious, the McDonaldizationd & the Disneyization regarding all the continents. Secondly, it’s time to emphasize on the Globalisation to better highlight after consequently the connection between globalisation and the famous Mcdisneyization as the field experts call the phenomenon’s mix.

According to the English magazine The Economist (20th of July 2009), Globalisation can be seen as “the growing liberalisation of markets around the world, giving western multinationals access to customers they never thought they would reach » and also as « the rapid growth of large developing countries such as China, India and Brazil, and their growing demand not only for western consumer goods and technologies but also for goods and services from other developing countries».

In few words the globalisation brings together lots of terms and idea about the market logic expansion. “Globalization can be seen in many aspects. The most popular are definitely those two – Disneyfication (known as Disneyzation) and Mcdonalization process” (Anon, 2011). Finishing with the most important definitions, the heart of the present analysis now bit more of details about what are Mcdonalisation and Disneyization. We wouldn’t choose other words to explain that two principles than Alex Bryman’s ones, great expert on the topic.

For him both terms are complementary, and in his publication “The Disneyization of society” (1998), he defined the terms as “the process by which the principles of Disney theme parks are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world » and « the process by which the principles of McDonald restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world ». These diagnoses, it’s important to say, are slightly inspired as well from Ritzer book about The Mcdonaldization of Society (2011).

Ritzer was in fact the precursor in this field; he was the first one to invent the current sociological phenomenon which is currently happening in our XXI century society. To situate the phenomenon impacts, I will now present you some of its advantages and disadvantages. First of all the McDonaldization brings the Democratisation of ‘eating out’, isn’t dependent on time and space, provides instant gratification of needs, accommodates longer working hours and facilitates an easy diffusion of cultural products.

On another side, the Mcdonaldization participates boldly to the decrease of diversity, also encourages bad environmental impact (For example, fries require uniform potatoes that need extensive chemical fertilizing), also has a disastrous human impact (problems of alienation, nutritional balance and assembly line eating). Last but nor least, the two American super powers created oligopolies which had saturated and smothered their native market by their expensive and disproportionate growth. Of course, they still have some competitors; KFC, and Burger King for McDonald, Fox and Dreamworks for the Disney incorporation.

But even if they didn’t completely took over their respective markets, there are horrible consequences to this, socio-cultural consequences: Now the brands can barely do everything they want, they do not have to follow exactly what the customer is demanding because they know they will follow them quietly. They are monitoring the consumption in their own favour. Here it’s perfect timing to incorporate the notion of Globalisation of Culture to go a bit further in the understanding of the context. The culture too can endure movements of ideas, values, and also attitudes around the globe.

The cultural globalisation as we can characterise this, can be well reflected with the pop entertainment industry for example. Nowadays teenagers in Tel Aviv listen and dance on the same music like Japanese teenagers in Tokyo. In our era, it’s way simpler for population from divergent cultures to discover shared interests. That can be, in Tandon’s point of view (2004), a kind of threat because “it will obliterate local cultures everywhere by homogenizing societies across the globe”. Local identities will little by little be fluffed and decredibilised.

ADD here the notion of rapid development through events 􏰀Develops a nation 􏰀Develops and enhances the cultures 􏰀Develops the businesses through exhibitions and conferences 􏰀Develops tourism and produces huge economic benefits 􏰀Makes politicians look good 􏰀“God smiles when his children play” – it shows a population at its best! Now that all the terms are settled and lighted up, it is the moment to explain and demonstrate the link between this growing globalisation and the event industry.

And in a first part, as a complementary explanation, the different processes or stages of both phenomenon’s, Mcdonaldization and Disneyization, will be detailed. Indeed, It will begin by Disney’s stages processes, which are respectively Theming, Hybrid consumption, Merchandising & Performance Labour. You will have understand, theming is the process by which the content of a brand are enriched by a narrative, when there is a story telling process behind the consumption.

These days, we saw theming process uses everywhere and the greatest example I can provide you is the Las Vegas Strip: Casino and excessiveness theme are the master words for the main street of the sin city. The second aspect is the Hybrid consumption, defined by Bryman in 2000, “forms of consumption are brought together in new and often imaginative ways. With hybrid consumption, the general principle is getting people to stay longer”, these can be observe in massive Mall fulfilled of activities like ski run in Dubai Emirates Mall.

Thirdly the merchandising is “the promotion of goods in the form of bearing the copyright images and logos, including such products made under such license” (Bryman, 2000). Use an image you know is already attractive for your customers, that already work and reuse it to increase further revenues, merchandising is more and more used by multinational companies. The Star Wars mania is a great example, once people understood that Mr Lucas film and characters had become some money machines, they decline the characters and ambiance from the famous movies into clothes, figurines, and congress...

To conclude briefly, the emotional labour characteristic of the Disneyization. “Emotional labour refers to employment situations in which workers as part of their work roles need to convey emotions and preferably to appear as though those emotions are deeply held” (Bryman, 2000). This last process is really well identifiable within Disney parks, every employees at the restaurants, shops, itinerant stands are dressed up according to the Disney codes in order to touch deeper the parks visitors, to better be remembered by the spectators.

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