China S Big Mac Attack Media Essay

mainland China S Big Mac fire Media EssayAmeri squeeze out companies argon charged with exporting American tillage along with their products. This is not a new occurrence as this charge can be traced rear to the sugar and tobacco trades of old. To further explore this accusation I ordain review two writings that attempt to tackle the subject, although from totally variant perspectives. The low is an essay by J.L. Watson called Chinas Big Mac Attack which takes a laissez-faire go through at the issuings that lead up to Chinas love mathematical function with the fast food giant. The second writing is a book by Benjamin groom titled Jihad vs. McWorld that presents a much darker look at multi-national corporations and their diabolical plot to capture the world. My contention is that incomplete positive is correct, the truth lying somewhere in the middle as is the topic with most complex issues.According to Watson in Chinas Big Mac Attack (2000), fast food restaurants bind m ade considerable inroads into Chinese tillage consequently, he asks the question Is world(prenominal)ism and its cultural variant, McDonaldization the face of the future? (Watson, 2000) An essential research as we begin our examination of western influences on the rest of the world. low gear Watson professes to review the writings of the theorists who argue that transnational corporations like McDonalds provide the scandalize troops for a new form of imperialism that is far to a greater extent successful, and indeed more insidious, than its militaristic antecedents (Watson, 2000). But instead of academicians, he analyses op-ed writers such as Ronald Steel and Thomas Friedman, who has noted that no countries with McDonalds have always fought separately otherwise in a war (Watson, 2000).To further examine the sieve of the successful inroads made by fast food corporations, Watson next delves into the muniment of McDonalds in Hong Kong (a British consulate where McDonalds wa s promoted as an outpost of American culture (Watson, 2000). Because of transformations in family life and traditional family values in China, Watson observes that McDonalds has taken advantage of a budding focus on the needs and aspirations of the modern Chinese family, especially disposed(p) the lavish attention bestowed upon the single child, the little emperors and empresses who ar specially defenseless to the amusement of Uncle McDonald (Watson, 2000). Although, there argon those that will disagree, Watson points out that McDonalds has bring to pass a target for public protests against America, which has amplified the symbolic load borne by the palmy arches (Watson, 2000).McDonalds has countered by disciplining its employees and its customer base, and by doing so, has attracted an elite group flourishing inside the modernized, charterr-based cultures that are emerging in markets around the world. McDonalds has ingeniously entrenched itself into the topical anesthetic cul tures in such a way that it is increasingly difficult to fool where the transnational ends and the local begins (Watson, 2000). The changing of cultural norms because of western impositions is further illustrated in Watson by discussion of the line which is first mandated by managers merely subsequently self-enforced by regular customers (Watson, 2000) ironically, public civility is now associated with western norms in Asian cities like Beijing. The cultural contrasts between fast food establishments in America and Beijing finds more apparent, however, in Watsons discussion of how consumers in the remote East have turned the fast food restaurants into community centers where they can safely visit, read, or entertain (Watson, 2000).Like James Watson, Benjamin Barber acknowledges in his book Jihad vs. McWorld (1992), that the concepts associated with multinationals such as McDonalds, Disney, and turn are more powerful than military force What is the power of the Pentagon compare d with Disneyland? Can the sixth Fleet keep up with CNN? McDonalds in Moscow and Coke in China will do more than military colonization ever could (Barber, 1992, p. 12). The first part of the book involves McWorld, the ever- growing service sector of the foreign economy, mainly as it manifests itself in what Barber calls the infotainment telesector, American in culture if not always in name. He sums it up in a score of brand names and pop icons Disney and Paramount, Nike and Reebok, Madonna and MTV, Coke and Pepsi, Homer Simpson and Batman, Kentucky Fried Chicken and, needless to say, McDonalds. These multi-national corporations are, according to Barber, relentlessly promoting its political orientation of fun at the expense of local institutions and folkways, this virtual economy of images and lifestyles promises to become nothing less than a world monoculture (Barber, 1992, p. 58). For civic life, this is particularly naughty news, Barber contends. Manipulated by promotion, spin , packaging, and advertising, citizens lose awareness of public matters, falling predate to passive consumption and devoting themselves exclusively to the satisfaction of their consumer wants.According to Barber in Jihad vs. McWorld we face two possible political futures both bleak, neither democratic either a Jihad in the name of a cardinal narrowly conceived faiths against every kind of social cooperation and civic mutuality, or one commercially homogenous global network one McWorld tied together by technology, ecology, communications, and commerce (Barber, 1992, p. 315). Barber indicates that the forces of Jihad and the forces of McWorld operate with equal strength in opposite directions so as to create a centrifugal whirlwind that competes with a centripetal black hole (Barber, 1992, p. 315). Neither version is presented as a desirable outcome.Barber asserts that McWorld has eroded national boundaries because all national markets have become vulnerable to free trade and inter national banking / currency exchanges that allow in in and privilege transnational and multinational corporations and entities like the World Bank. On the surface, ease is fostered by open markets. Religious and racial markers become less all-important(a) when the more important characteristic of universe human is seen as being able to shop and consume. (Barber, 1992, p. 16).Furthermore, no one country can endorse itself as an autarky anymore we are all interdependent. Even wet countries like the United States depend on resources (like oil) found in other areas of the world (Barber, 1992, p. 372). The flow of goods is paralleled by the flow of ideas across boundaries because of modern developments in science and technology, particularly in the integration of computer, television, cable, satellite, laser, fiber-optic, and microchip technologies that have given us access to information and people all of the time in all places (Barber, 1992, p. 108).Barber warns that capitalism a nd democracy have a relationship, but it is something less than a marriage (Barber, 1992, p. 126). Principally in ecological and environmental matters, capitalism has created greater inequality because the modern world cannot afford to allow developing countries to consume graphic resources at the progressively more crushing rate that we see happening in the current consumer markets.The U.S. is experiencing, through increase immigration and more socially liberal views, a shift in family values. As the manufacturing base in the United States continues to be shifted abroad, the western culture remains the last product available for export. As we have already seen in discussions of changing families and values in the U.S., globally, these changes are taking report in many parts of the world, so that these debates between being a consumer or a citizen take on global implications. Six billion people consuming at the same rate that Americans now consume would inevitably lead to enviro nmental destruction and disputes would lead to wars over natural resources. As Watson acknowledges, the question is no longer simply whose culture is it that dominates the more important question is what will be the outcome of adventurism associated with rising profusion (Watson, 2000) as markets are opened and imports (and the Internet) make shopping a world-wide event?The question of prevention hinges on whether this phenomenon should be halted or prevented in the first place. The more alike all individuals are as a global people, the less reason there will be for wars. Most wars directly are fought on the basis of differences. The difference in question whitethorn be religion, politics, race, or culture. Differences and diversity may be great if these items are dragged out on holidays or practiced in private. However, when these cultural or religious differences invade the work-place or the government, it is a recipe for disaster and exclusion. If Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and the A merican media can bring about this homogenymore power to them.