Custom written book review: Joe Kincheloe and the book The Sign of the Burger: McDonald’s and the Culture of power
Book Review
Section 1: Summary
Who is the author?
Joe Kincheloe is the author of the book The Sign of the Burger: McDonald’s and the Culture of power, is renowned for his contribution into cultural studies, pedagogic, sociology and other fields. Kincheloe is a professor of education at Brooklyn College, and he was also author of other published books. The author is renowned for his research works and the book is the manifestation of his study of McDonald’s culture and its impact on the social life, ideology, economy and culture. In such a way, the book is one of the major accomplishments of Joe Kincheloe. He attempted to explore the role and impact of McDonald’s as the manifestation of the modern capitalist economy and the impact of the large corporation on the ideology of the modern society in the globalized process. In fact, the researcher is experienced and renowned, which make his findings reliable. At any rate, the author represents the results of his study conducted in the course of many years. In such a way, the author combines his personal and professional experience. Therefore, the author is reliable and experienced, while his study was extensive and reliable. Joe Kincheloe attempted to reveal the truth beyond McDonald’s to reveal the full extent to which the company is influential in the contemporary society. At the same time, the author uses his extensive knowledge in the field of culture, economy and sociology to incorporate them in his book and to conduct the in-depth analysis of McDonald’s as one of the major multinational corporations that mirror the life of the contemporary society and the process of globalization, which reveals the essence of the contemporary capitalist economy and consumerist society. Therefore, the author attempts to complete his study and to present his vision not only on McDonald’s as the major corporation, the behemoth of the contemporary fast food industry, but also on the contemporary society and capitalist system that affects the life of people worldwide.
What is the book about?
The book The Sign of the Burger: McDonald’s and the Culture of power is written by Joe Kincheloe. This two hundred and thirty two page book was published in year 2002 by the Temple University Press.
McDonald’s is the world largest chain of fast food restaurant, its indelible symbol represent the American culture. This book looks at the power behind the McDonald’s cooperation and their serves towards globalization. There is a multi-facet view of the “Golden Arches” from the people’s view as the global culture signifier to corporation expansion in the world.
At the same time, the book goes far beyond the mere analysis of the global expansion of McDonald’s. Instead, the author attempts to understand the full extent to which McDonald’s influences the contemporary society, its culture and ideology. The economic impact of McDonald’s is viewed by the author as one of many possible influences, which the contemporary society is vulnerable to from the part of McDonald’s.
The book traces the development of McDonald’s and evolution of the author’s view on the company. At first, the author views the company from a standpoint of an average citizen, as he first dines in McDonald’s being quite naïve and incompetent concerning the essence of McDonald’s marketing strategy. In fact, the author reveals the fact that McDonald’s emerged as a chain of fast food restaurants, which provided customers with standard services and quality of its products and services. Since the beginning of its operations, the company attempted to present its business in the positive light, while, in actuality, actions and policies of McDonald’s are far from perfect. For instance, the author refers to the employment of women by the company, which McDonald’s presented as the manifestation of its egalitarian approach to its employees. In fact, the company did present its policy of the employment of women as the intention of the company to put the end to discrimination and create equal conditions for work of all employees, regardless race, gender, and so on.
However, Kincheloe turns out to be very skeptical about good intentions of McDonald’s in regard to the employment of female employees. In fact, the author places emphasis on the fact that such policy was profitable for the company because McDonald’s could employ women at lower wages. Thus, the company saved costs on the cheaper labor force and improved its public image demonstrating its devotedness to traditional American democratic values and standards. In fact, this was just one of many examples, which the author draws in his book. The main message the author wants to convey with the help of such examples is to reveal the hypocrisy of McDonald’s marketing strategy and its pursuit of profits as the key driver of its marketing strategy and company-customer relationships.
Then the author analyzes McDonald’s as a company that generates new ideology and maintains the ideology of the ruling elite. In fact, the author reveals the fact that the ideology of McDonald’s coincided with the ideology of the ruling elite. In this regard, there is probably no direct links or intention of the company to match the ideology of the ruling elite but the similarity of their ideologies is the result of the similarity of their interests as the book reveals, which are the exploitation of people for their own benefit. To put it more precisely, McDonald’s promotes the ideology of the global corporation, which operates internationally. The company stresses that consumers can enjoy the same high quality of products and services of the company worldwide. The company implements the same corporate principles, regardless of the physical location of its restaurants. At the same time, the idea of McDonald’s as a worldwide corporation is the milestone of its ideology because it implies not only common standards and values for all restaurants of the company but also this idea implies that the company focuses on the global market expansion and domination. Thus, the author reveals the true capitalist nature of McDonald’s because the contemporary capitalist system aims not only at globalization but also and mainly at monopolization of the market. Even though McDonald’s do not declares its strife for monopolization, the company apparently strives to take the monopolistic or, at least, dominant position in the market because such position will allow the company to reap maximum profits off its customers. In such a situation, actual and potential rivals of the company will be just unable to compete with McDonald’s because the industry leader holding a strong position can control the industry development, while a monopolist can even neglect interests of consumers.
Furthermore, the author views McDonald’s from both modernist and postmodernist perspectives. From the modernist point of view, McDonald’s is almost a perfect company, where the standardization has reached the unparalleled level of development and is close to absurd. On the other hand, it is the standardization that allows McDonald’s to expand its market fast and to provide customers with standard set of products and services, which meet the quality standards of the company. At the same time, the intention of the company to follow the high standards often makes employees and consumers mere tools in the complex apparatus of McDonald’s. The author reveals McDonald’s from the modernist perspective as a well-organized and reliable machine which functions well without failures and interruptions, even if it is necessary to expand the market at cost of well-being of local communities. For instance, many farmers in European countries, such as France, suffered substantial financial losses, while many ran bankrupt, in the result of McDonald’s expansion. In this regard, the standardization of McDonald’s became one of the key factors of their losses and failures.
From the postmodernist perspective, McDonald’s creates a hyperreality to promote the ideology favorable for the company, relying heavily on values which are important for consumers. The company attempts to create the new ideology and make consumers following it blindly. The postmodernist perspective presented by Kincheloe reveals the intention of the company to make consumers to accept any innovation or new product or service introduced by the company. In such a way, the company became a signifier of the world fast food industry, which is the standard for all other companies operating in the fast food industry to follow. Customers view McDonald’s as a signifier of a fast food restaurant. Literally, this means that if consumers think of a fast food restaurant, they think of McDonald’s-like restaurant.
Furthermore, the book reveals the fact that McDonald’s is a public educator. The company does not just promote its products and services but it educators its consumers. In this regard, the author argues that McDonald’s often refer to traditional values of the target customer group, such as the family values. The restaurant attempts to attract families referring to traditional family values, which are strong in the US and many other countries, even though the family, in itself, has lost its social significance. As a result, consumers grow accustomed to McDonald’s since childhood that increases the probability that, when children dining in McDonald’s restaurants grow up, they are likely to bring their children to McDonald’s too. Moreover, McDonald’s educate tastes of customers offering its products and services, which are presented as ideal, as signifiers of good taste.
Do you like this essay?
Our writers can write a paper like this for you!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...