CULTURAL DIFFUSION, EXPANSION & POPULAR CULTURES & MCDONALDIZATION

SOC 210

CULTURAL DIFFUSION• HARLEM SHAKE example.

WHAT IS CULTURAL DIFFUSION?

• It is the spread of cultural trends across locations.

•Beliefs, practices and ideas get shared from person to person and sometimes even around the world through this diffusion, as happens with viral videos.

EXPANSION DIFFUSION• Many cultural practices are spread by a type of cultural diffusion called expansion diffusion.

• This is when a trend is spread from its originating place, outward.

• There are several forms of this type of diffusion:

Contagious DiffusionHierarchical DiffusionStimulus Diffusion

Contagious Diffusion• When a cultural trend is transmitted from person to

person from an original source to numerous others, similar to virus, we call it contagious diffusion.

Hierarchical Diffusion• When a cultural trend is spread from one segment of

society to another in a pattern, we call it hierarchical diffusion.

• When information is known by the government officials before the public, hierarchical diffusion is the method the news is spread. For example: Osama Bin Laden’s death had been spread from the highest levels of government of USA.

Stimulus Diffusion• When a cultural trend spreads but is changed by those

people who are adapting the idea. For example: many people in the world practice yoga but they make use of it in a different way than the regions where yoga is originated.

RELOCATION DIFFUSION• It happens when a person migrates from their home and shares their culture with a new location.

• It accounts for much of the folk culture that can be seen in different regions based on migration patterns.

• For example; if a person grows up in a large city, they may have lived near a neighborhood such as Chinatown or Little Italy, and so they have the opportunity to learn about and even participate in the cultural traditions of these groups.

Folk Culture• The traditional culture of a specific region. • It is viewed as retaining its connection to an original place.

• Folk culture is often contrasted with popular culture. With viral videos on internet and many other forms of expansion diffusion, the connections to the culture’s origins are often less clear and so they are labeled as mainstream popular culture, or pop culture.

The Impact of Internet

• Is it making folk culture disappear?• Not necessarily.

• Internet can blur the lines between folk and pop culture since there is less literal distance to travel to share cultural

information and practices. • For example: Original Harlem Shake dance being

more well-known now.

MCDONALDIZATION

What is McDonaldization concept?• George Ritzer’s book ‘The McDonaldization of Society’ at

1993.• The best selling sociology book of all times.

MCDONALDS• McDonalds brothers had opened McDonalds restaurants at 1937 inCalifornia.• They did not use traditional restaurantrules as serving to the table but they applied self-service.• They used labor of divison and professionalized various

production lines. • They created regulations that teach workers what to do,

even what to say exactly.

• In 1954, Ray Krocs took McDonalds restaurant over McDonalds brothers and he is the genius behind the franchising of McDonalds restaurants.

• George Ritzer used the principles of McDonalds restaurants to define the cultural changes in contemporary world.

• He defines McDonaldization as the process by which principles of fast food restaurants have come to dominate virtually every aspect of society.

• The building block of McDonaldization is Max Weber’s concept of rationalization which is the process of replacing traditional and emotional thought with reason and efficiency.

• Max Weber believed that most societies throughout the history were governed by tradition and that the most significant trend in modern sociology is an increasing rationalization of every part of our daily lives.

• He also believed that rationalization would continue until our society would become an iron cage, dehumanizing everyone and creating an extreme level of uniformity.

• Likewise, Ritzer uses McDonalds as a metaphor for the over-rationalization of society.

• The popularity of the restaurant itself is a perfect example of rationalization because traditional, home-cooked family meals have been replaced with meals of practicality and convenience.

Main Principles of McDonaldization• PREDICTABILITY• CALCULABILITY

• EFFICIENCY• CONTROL

Critical Thinking Question• What examples of McDonaldization do you see in your society? How does it affect the culture?