Cai Guo-Qiang Gunpowder's Project impact On Qatar

From November 2011 through December 2011, I’ve been working with Chinese Contemporary Artist and Curator; Cai Guo-Qiang, hosted by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar. Cai initially began working with gunpowder to foster spontaneity and confront the suppressive, controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China.















While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Cai explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale and the development of his signature "explosion events". While I was participating in this project, I noticed that sociology has a very huge impact on the process was running on through the whole project. At the beginning, there was a huge discussion of hosting the Gunpowder Project here in Qatar by engaging the young generation with it, however, Mathaf has broke the norms by introducing the Gunpowder Project in Qatar. Everyone who heard about the huge explosion that is going to be held in Qatar got worried about it, however, the advertisement around Doha Town helped people to get engaged with the process of the project and actually people signed to participate in this new norm happening in Qatar.















From day one, I’ve been noticing many sociological aspects from culture, mcdonaldzation, to individuality vs. collectivism. Even though, it’s Cai’s individual artwork, he broke the norm by involving us the audience from China and Qatar, in his project by assigning us tasks to complete his work as a group instead. I found that he had assigned each participant with specific tasks and everyone would be working with efficiency, calculability, predictability under his control, which symbolize mcdonaldzation. On the other hand, the gender and ethnicity was not a problem with him at all. There were many people from this region and foreigners too collaborating in his project, which is a morality's gesture from him. By hosting here in Qatar I believe, he had a huge impact in spreading his culture through his Artworks by attracting the audience and engaging them to spread and share his values. I learned from this experience that, culture could be extent through many various ways rather than the old fashioned techniques; it needs only an influential vision and strength to accomplish the intention.





It's All over the News!!








The Project's Conclusion.

Technological Future

"In 2010, Qatar had the world's highest GDP per capita, while the economy grew by 19.40%, the fastest in the world. The main drivers for this rapid growth are attributed to ongoing increases in production and exports of liquefied natural gas, oil, petrochemicals and related industries. Qatar has the second-highest human development in the Arab World after the United Arab Emirates. In 2009, Qatar was the United States’ fifth-largest export market in the Middle East, trailing behind the U.A.E., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt." (“Qatar: history,” par.3)
As the quotation above shows, my country, Qatar, is improving and becoming globally known. In addition, there are some changes in the way of work. Efficiency is dominant as a priority of work places. Automation, instead of human hands, becomes more reliable and desirable. Progress in society demands a respectful job. Also, societies that use new technologies have more educated workers, so there are no places for little, unprofessional jobs. The machines that replace the simple and easy kind of work that humans do save time and money, and this is happening more often because of economic interests. ATM machines and vending machines are the easiest and fastest for me to buy from, but sometimes I feel sorry for people who lose their work because of this. Now banks are hiring fewer numbers of people than they used to because of the spread of ATM machines that make it easier and faster rather going to stand in a long line and waiting for your turn. I also noticed that there are some coffee shops in Qatar that demand you to serve yourself.

There are two sides of replacing human workers with technology, which are the negative and positive sides of this phenomenon. The negative side is that workers lose their jobs. And the positive side is that they will go back to schools and get better jobs, and human trafficking will stop. On the other hand, society will begin to start a self-service mentality that is part of McDonaldization, and we will become unpaid employees. Consumer workers will service themselves and benefit the economy by freeing up more money for highly skilled jobs. Thus, both consumers and the economy benefit.

Source: “Qatar: history.” Wikipedia. 15 Nov. 2011 (latest update). Web. 14 Nov 2011.

McDonaldization Spread

McDonaldization refers to the increasing presence of the fast-food model in many organizations that are involved in shaping people’s daily lives. It is a process whereby the principles of restaurants are dominating many sectors of Qatar society, as well as of the rest of the societies. When it occurs in the university, work, travel, leisure, shopping, healthcare and education become subject to this process. You can find shopping malls, food courts, and sports stadiums; even cruise ships reflecting this trend toward standardization.



Each industry is based on a principle of high and efficient productivity, which translates into a highly rational social organization, with workers employed at low pay, and customers experiencing ease, convenience and familiarity.
Ritzer’s four primary components of McDonaldization can be applied here. Firstly, there is calculability. McDonaldized services are quantified. The customer’s burgers and fries are an exact size, and are delivered within a specified time. Quality is redefined as quantity. Secondly, there is efficiency. This means that in a time-pressured society, mcdonaldized services are desired because they are fast. The third one is predictability. This means that the products and services are standardized at all times and everywhere. They are the same. The fourth one is control. Where possible, technology is substituted for human labor. The goods and services are automated. Irrationality and rationality is the fifth aspect. Irrationality means that the rational systems are unreasonable systems. This further means that they deny the human reason, the basic humanity of the people who work within or those that are served by them.



In conclusion, McDonaldization is a good business model that many industries have adopted the same organizational characteristics. It aids society a lot because they get goods and services efficiently and effectively.

Mcdonaldization of Hamad Medical Corporation In Qatar

In reference to sociologist George Ritzer, Mcdonaldization is the “process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world.” He came up with four main principles that are leading fast-food restaurants and coming to dominate the society. The four leading components are: efficiency, quantification, predictability and control. These four principles may be applied to nearly every business cooperation and even social institutions. However, these four principles are greatly applied to hospitals and health care. The best example may be Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar.



Going to the hospital and getting some health care tends to be a lot more simplified and predictable than it was before. Efficiency as one of the four main components of Mcdonaldization plays an important role within hospitals and healthcare. Efficiency is the service offered to allow consumers to move quickly from one state to another. For instance, back in the days patients knew their doctors on personal levels and had family doctors, whereas, nowadays, the relationship between doctors and patients are less personal and more efficient. The existences of appointments have increased the efficiency, rather than having patients turn up randomly without previous appointments. Some times patients have to call ahead of time book appointments. Other times, they may need to book an additional appointment to follow up. In addition, the roles of nurses play another essential responsibility in making Hamad Hospital more efficient. They tend to examine the patient, while the patient is waiting for their appointment. Sometimes, they even provide preliminary diagnosis without having to see the doctor. They actually have a room for preliminary examinations.

In order to process patients in an efficient cooperation, Hamad Medical Corporation needs to endure quantification and calculation. Quantification is the numerical indicators that enable consumers to evaluate a service easily. In this situation, the numerical indicators are the health card ID numbers, files, and even the numbers you get as soon as you walk to the reception of the hospital. This is when the patients gets their waiting numbers before even getting to the receptionist and inform them that they’re attending. Then, the receptionist would get their file ready by searching for the health card ID number. Obviously, we could infer that Hamad Hospital is not only using quantification and calculation, but also a scientific management to administer the hospital. Scientific management is the attempt to analyze the work and to identify the most efficient way to accomplish the given task. In this case, Taylorism comes into play, where everyone in the hospital has a specific role. The receptionist get files ready and the numbering machine counts and manage the patients without having long ques.



Predictability, consistency, discipline, routine and order are the principles I noticed at Hamad Medical Corporation. Predictability is the expectation that a service will be the same no matter what. In this instance, the predictability I encountered and noticed at Hamad Hospital was that individuals had their specific role and everything was in order. For instance, if I were to be a patient, Id know how to get an appointment and see a doctor. I would first call for an appointment, attend on the day, get a number, go to the receptionist in order for them to get my file ready, wait in the waiting area, have them call out my name, complete any necessary preliminary examinations, see the doctor and get a diagnosis in regards to the situation, and later on, get a follow-up appointment if necessary.

Last, but not least, control plays an extremely vital role within the health care system. In a sociological sense, “control is the guiding or regulating, by planning out in detail, the production or delivery of a service or product,”(Joan Ferrante 2011). Doctors have the final say in our well being, especially at the Hamad Medical Corporation emergency section. They make the final decision in extreme situations, where they decide on whether which patient is more critical and in more desperate need than another. For instance, in worse case scenarios, the doctors decide on transplants, blood donations and even with life/death circumstances.



Efficiency, quantification, predictability and control are all four main driving forces behind Mcdonaldization. The simple process of Mcdonaldization has come to dominate other industries of the society. The sociologist George Ritzer invented the term Mcdonaldization and the sociological phenomenon of the rationalization of institutions and our society. But, this is not where it ends; the process could possibly be applied to every aspect of our lives, even with listening to music and shopping.

Cinema in Qatar

A decade ago the cinema business here in Qatar was very small. The biggest cinema, Al-Khaleej cinema, had two theaters only! However, if we look at cinemas in Qatar today we can see that one cinema can have more than 13 theaters.

It is easy to see today how the principles of McDonaldization are dominating cinemas in Qatar today. Cinemas are trying to become efficient more than anytime before. If we take the cinema at the Villagio Mall, you can see they have more than four ordinary counters along with a specialized counter for the balconies and the IMAX Theater.

At these counters the booking takes place through a computerized system where a screen shows you the available seats in the theater, and you get to pick which seat you want. in addition, if you want to go watch a movie, you can go to the online cinema guide and check for the screening times.

Furthermore, there is a clear division of labor. One worker sells you the ticked outside, and when you go inside another person cuts your ticket right at the gate that leads you to all the theaters, and at last you’ll find a different person checking you ticket when you enter the theater to show you where you are supposed to sit.

Moreover, they have many sorts of food and beverages offered for sale before entering the theater. These include popcorn, soft drinks, shakes, chocolates, cupcakes, cookies, hot corn, nachos with cheese and jalapeño. It is very important to mention the globalization of eating food at the theater. This globalized norm applies mostly to popcorn andcoke.

We can also see the quantification and calculation in the different options they offer to their customers, ones that weren’t available before. Some movies are offered in an ordinary theater,3D, or in the IMAX Theater, where the last costs the most and the first costs the least, corresponding to the quality. Moreover, there are three theaters with balconies that offer bigger seats for a higher price.

Regarding predictability, the customer expects to see the same movie if he or she went to any theater, if its not the IMAX. Moreover, you always expect the food to taste the same, and when you go for a movie in the IMAX Theater or book a seat in the balcony you expect a better overall experience.

Moving to control, despite all the deviance that goes around, people are not allowed to bring food from outside, which keeps them limited with the food offered at the cinema that is much more expensive compared to the prices outside. But as I said, many people sneak their food in their purses. Moreover, if you buy a ticket you cannot return it or change it for another ticket.

McDonaldization of The Music Industry

George Ritzer, is the great mind behind the term McDonaldization. It can be used to describe the functioning of different formal organizations, such as hospitals, shopping centers, or even universities. However, I’ve decided to look at the McDonaldization of the music industry.

There are four principles of a fast food restaurant that Ritzer discusses in his talk about McDonaldization are: efficiency, quantification and calculation, predictability, and control. All of there principles can be applied to the music industry and how, if you look close enough, it functions just like a McDonald’s.

The way that the music industry applies the principle of efficiency is as follows. They want to be able to make megabucks by selling their artists’ music, so they make sure that they music that they are producing is the most productive and appealing to their targeted audience. They offer the best music that they can offer to their consumer to satisfy their needs as they are their primary source of income, and if their productions were not efficient and sufficient then they wouldn’t have a job anymore. For example: the producers of an album know that the most efficient time to sell a Christmas album is more than likely to be around the holidays, and not during the summer, therefore they are being efficient in making sure that they don’t waste their resources.

Next on the principle list comes quantification and calculation. This particular principle is applicable to several different aspects of the music industry. The notion that more is better can be viewed two different ways, and in both be seen as ways of quantification. The first way is by looking at the number of albums they sell, and subsidiary to that all the other merchandize they come up with. To the consumer they get more for their money when they buy the album on iTunes. If they didn’t know about the extra material online and actually bought the actual CD first then they will have to buy the whole album again in order to get the material, thus the music industry gets more. The second way of looking at this principles is can be looked at as quantity over quality. There are numerous artists in the industry, and a majority of them are very similar. At one point Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson were all very similar. As if they were mass-produced artists, thus more of the same artists as opposed to a few really gifted ones.




Predictability. When thinking about the music industry it is pretty predictable when it comes to what you get from it. It starts off with a lot of promotion for a new artist, after that comes a first single, the album is released, maybe a couple more singles, that artists is an opening act for a while, they get their own tour, and work on their second album begins. Or at least something along those lines when an artist is actually signed to a label. As consumers we know that the most popular songs usually come out during the summer, and that’s when we expect the artists to come out with the best that they’ve got. We know what to expect from a boy band (though not many good ones exist nowadays), what Beyoncé is going to sound like, and what country music is like. It’s the way the industry functions that makes it predictable in a good way.

Last but not least comes the principle of control. This is where the music industry actually regulates what comes out of it and how that goes about happening. They make sure everyone is doing their particular job to the best of their abilities. Everyone does what they need to do in order for the organization to function properly, and if one person makes a mistake it can result in failure.

McDonaldization can be seen everywhere in society and the music industry is no exception. Question is, how much more can society take of it?

McGorgeous

When I think of a beauty salon, the last thing that would come to my mind is McDonald's; however these organizations are actually very similar. Their similarities are not focused on what they offer, but rather how they offer services and products. I've been to beauty salons many times and I never made a connection between them and McDonald's until I learned about McDonaldization. The McDonaldization of society theorizes "the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as the rest of the world" (Ritzer 1993, p.1). This process of socialization incorporates four fundamental dimensions- efficiency, quantification and calculation, predictability and control. All of these four dimensions have been applied to beauty salons in Qatar. I wanted to find out more about this process and how it has influenced so many organizations, so this weekend I went to a salon to really observe how things got done!



Efficiency: The other day I was at a McDonald's drive-thru and I noticed a board on the wall that said the time taken to place an order and until you receive it is a guaranteed 90 seconds. When people use a drive-thru, they're obviously hungry and want to satisfy themselves in the quickest way possible. Likewise, beauty salons have several employees that tend to customers depending on what they want. For instance, some work on hair, makeup, manicure, pedicures, etc. so that the task can be done as efficiently as possible and to avoid any waiting time. Like consumers in McDonald's that move from hungry to full, customers in a beauty salon transition from feeling ugly to feeling pretty.

Quantification and calculation: Similar to how the prices at McDonalds are standardized in every branch, the prices for each different service in the salon are also set. When you first walk in the salon there is a poster with all the different services customers can choose from and their corresponding prices, just like a McDonald's menu. The prices in all the salons may not all be exactly the same, but they are in the same range. Also some salons offer express services, for example, some promise to perform a mani/pedi in 10 minutes. Customers can also make appointments beforehand so they can come in during a time that is convenient for them without having to wait. Many salons also provide services at home that allow customers to enjoy offers from the comfort of their own house.



Predictability: If you order a big Mac in a mall and then go to a gas station and order the same thing, you will expect and receive the same quality of what you purchased. This is the same for beauty salons. For instance, when I go in for my mani/pedi I expect my fingers and toes to look exactly how I predict them to be. This predictability can be seen in other services and other salons in Qatar and outside. Predictability can also refer to discipline, routine and order and one clear example of this is uniforms. Both McDonald's and beauty salon employees wear uniforms to show exactly here they belong within the organization. For instance, the cashier at the salon would wear a different colored apron than the other employees and the manager of the salon doesn't wear a uniform, just like a McDonald's manager who wears regular clothes.



Control: The food at McDonald's is assembled in a controlled and regulated manner. Each employee has a job that they do in a sequenced chronological order that will help ease the flow of production and delivery of the product. Equally, beauty salons employee numerous people for certain services. For example, if I'm going in to do my hair, my hair would be washed by someone and another person would move over and start working on it. Also what I noticed, beauty salons tend to get busier during the Eid holidays and to control the crowd, customers would be issued numbers and wait for their turn. This keeps things in order and maintains regulated production of the service. Ritzer also discusses the heavy involvement of machinery in Mcdonaldization. For example, in beauty salons everything uses machines, there's even a dryer for your fingers and toes after you apply nail polish. Each step in a beauty process involves a machine and nobody questions what the employees are doing, they only care about the end product. Similar to how the food in McDonald's is assembled to reach a certain quality, the same is done in the form of services for customers in a beauty salon.

McDonald's is recognizable in almost every part of the world with its golden arches which distinguish it. Beauty salons in Qatar are no exception, they are scattered almost everywhere due to their popularity and they have standardized everything from prices, target audience and symbolism. For instance the majority of beauty salons are for females only and they all have the silhouette of a woman to distinguish them. In these two different organization we see how McDonaldization is evident and all four dimensions are applied in beauty salons. We see how this fast food chain has changed, revolutionized and influenced how organizations perform and deliver services and products to customers.

Hamburgerology, and what it led to!

McDonaldization of TGI Friday's

According to Ritzer, McDonaldization is the process where the whole society, and not only restaurants, is increasingly running like a fast-food restaurant.



As it was Friday, I decided to examine McDonaldization at TGI Friday's and in the same time have a delicious dinner with my sister at my favorite restaurant. Upon setting there and observing what was going on, I was surprised that many aspects of the restaurant, which in the past appeared to me as common senses, are actually McDonaldized, but most of the people are unconsciously practicing them.

While observing the cycle of interaction between the customers and employees, I realized that the restaurant’s hospitality is standardized. For example, whenever a customer gets in the restaurant, there will be a nice lady standing in front, smiling, holding a candy basket, and repeating the same exact phrases over and over for every customer who is approaching her or even leaving the restaurant. The waiters and waitresses do the same behavior as well, "Would you like a drink or fries with that?" or "Thank you, have a nice day!" According to sociology, these repetitive phrases and actions of the employees are small examples of the machine-like theme identified in the McDonaldization theory.

What is special about TGI Friday’s, from my personal experience, is the fact that its employees, especially the waitresses and waiters are trying to create an intimate relationship between the customers. Based on the way they interact and dress, I can say that they are not very professional but helpful and joyful.



From the way they were dressing, I was able to distinguish the different roles that each employee had and identify their positions. For example, waiters were wearing clown-like outfits, which has helped create senses of humor and vitality in the atmosphere.Managers or whoever seemed higher in position, were wearing professional outfits like dark suits with ties.

The whole business involves attributes of efficiency, calculation, predictability, and control. Their service was so efficient; employees were working as a team most of the time. In other words, individuality is not allowed. Employees were also doing their best in advising and interpreting customer wants. Therefore, customers are encouraged to expect certain service standards, which allow for an efficient service. Information technology is also used to ensure that these services targets are met. For example, they used machines to accomplish certain tasks like refilling drinks and accounting.






In terms of calculation, I realized that TGI Friday's emphasizes quantity rather than quality of its products. The food menu, for example contains over 30 items and the cocktail menu is similarly extensive, along with the desert menu. In addition, the ways in which the food is portrayed on the menus, give the customer an illusion of the quality.

In short, McDonaldization has extended its reach into more and more regions of society. It is affecting every aspect of our lives including cultures, beliefs, and the ways people think. Although there have been many benefits and conveniences that are related to this process of McDonaldization. Its increasingly rational outcomes are becoming irrational.