The Jeremiad Over Journalism

Additonally, Schiller‘s reliance on cultural imperialism as the framework though which he
interprets events leaves out the instances when American technology is actually welcomed in by
other countries and not forced upon them. As will become apparent in the subsequent section on
how structural Americanization was perceived in Denmark, there was actually quite a demand for
technology from the United States which was believed to make everyday journalism practices easier
and not least cheaper. This aspect of ―empire by invitation,‖ as the Norwegian director of the Nobel
Committee, Geir Lundestad, has termed American influence in the post-World War II years, is
absent from Schiller‘s study. 42
Ritzer and Stillman (2003)
George Ritzer and Todd Stillman‘s book chapter ―Assessing McDonaldization, Americanization
and Globalization,‖ gives a fairly pessimistic appraisal of Americanization defined as ―a powerful
one-directional process that tends to overwhelm competing processes (e.g. Japanization) as well as
the strength of local forces that might resist, modify and/or transform American models into hybrid
forms.‖ 43 Americanization is described in terms of cultural, political and economic imperialism and
in Ritzer and Stillman‘s view does not leave room for much individual agency on the receiving end
of the process.
Ritzer and Stillman organize their concepts in a hierarchy and argue that ―globalization is the
broadest process, Americanization is a specific, powerful globalizing force, and McDonalidization
is (among other things) a constituent part of Americanization.‖ Yet the authors concede that in the
political realm Americanization is perhaps the single most important concept in order to understand
present day global society.
The authors define McDonaldization as a ―top-down, ‗iron cage‘ version of modern social theory,‖
associated with efficiency as well as standardization, and disclose their view of Americanization as
cultural imperialism with the following definition.
42 Geir Lundestad, "Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-52," Journal of Peace Research
23, no. 3 (1986). Page 276. ―American expansion was one of the most striking phenomena of the post-war period; this
expansion can be said to have created an American empire equal in scope to any the world had seen before. Yet, this
was to a large extent an empire by invitation and it turned out that many of those who issued the invitations prospered
more in material terms under the new order than did the United States itself.‖
43 George Ritzer and Todd Stillman, "Assessing McDonaldization, Americanization and Globalization," in Global
America? The Cultural Consequences of Globalization, ed. Ulrich Beck, Natan Sznaider, and Rainer Winter, Studies in
Social and Political Thought (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003). Page 35.
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