Proposal of International Communication Project

Lamiae Mejjane
Dr. Ibahrine
International Communication
26-09-2007



Proposal for International Communication Research Paper :

Statement of problem: McDonaldization, as it is defined by John S. Caputo, refers to the ‘process other businesses of the twentieth century like fast food restaurants, newspapers, schools, etc have followed using the same path of McDonald’s in their spread all over the world’ (p.39). In my research paper, I will deal with this process and take as a case study McDonald’s, as a ‘paradigm case’ of McDonaldization. This fast-food industry counts today twenty restaurants all over Morocco.
Main Problems to explain in my Research Paper:
The Products used in McDonald’s meals, are they imported? Or supplied by local farmers?
Is the meat used for preparing hamburgers or chicken burgers halal?
Why is the word ‘halal’ mentioned in small font in the billboards of McDonald’s, in the menus, etc?

The questions that I will focus on in my research paper are:
What are the methods used by this multinational corporation to meet local Moroccan food preferences? Does this fast food industry take into consideration the Moroccan religious convictions in the preparation of its meal (ex: Halal meat)?

Research question: My first research question was: What is the impact of McDonaldization on Muslim Culture? However, I found that the term ‘Muslim’ was too broad. My focus in this research paper is on the Moroccan culture, which is supposed to be Muslim (with the exception of some minorities of other religious people living in Morocco like the Jewish or Christian people). So, now, my research question is:
What is the Impact of McDonaldization on the Moroccan Culture?
Key Terms of my Research Paper:
McDonaldization
Culture
Moroccan (Muslim)
Globalization/Glocalization

The rationale, and explanation of what the findings of this project will contribute in the future:
This research paper will allow me to understand the mechanisms behind the business success of a multinational corporation in Morocco. So, I can better understand the Marketing strategies of other successful businesses existing in Morocco and targeting local consumers beyond the cultural or religious barriers.
This research paper, dealing with the case study of McDonald’s, will be useful for all the students in the International Communication Course.
Communication process:
Phone interview with the Director of McDonald’s in Kenitra (former director of McDonald’s Meknes and Rabat).
I will realize a report for my research paper ( a video in McDonald’s Meknes)
I will interview the director of McDonald’s Meknes and also some consumers, for the realization of my video, if they accept to answer to my questions and appear in the video.
Background
McDonald’s exists in Morocco from 1992. There exist today 20 restaurants all over Morocco. Mr. Belghiti was the first person in Morocco who had this franchise, with five restaurants all over Morocco. These restaurants did not satisfy the international norms of fast food security. Then Mr. Alami opened 15 restaurants.
The McDonald’s website does not have a part dealing with the McDonald’s restaurants in Morocco.
McDonald’s prepares meals adapted to the local Moroccan consumer specific to certain religious events (Ramadan for example). Why not a special menu for Friday? Or during the Aid El Kebir?
McDonald’s is involved in social responsibility in different Arab countries (like UAE, KSA), what about Morocco?

Situational analysis McDonald’s uses excellent marketing strategies to target the Moroccan consumer. This fast food industry went beyond the local culture and succeeded to influence eating habits of Moroccans, without destroying the habit of traditional food prepared by Moroccan families.

Message statement: McDonald’s is present in the main cities of Morocco. The consumers of its services have different ages. This fast food restaurant has succeeded to make a way of life, at first unknown by the Moroccans, a habit that may be appreciated by the majority of people in Morocco.
Target audience: Since this is a research paper, my target audience would be:
The professor of International Communication Course
International Communication Students
Key audiences messages: I’m Lovin’ it. This is the message of McDonald’s fast food industry. The logo (golden double arches is international)
Communication vehicles
A research paper
A video ( a report)
Timing
Week one (from the 3rd to the 9th of September): looking for an adequate topic for the International Communication research paper
Week two: (from the 10th to the 16th of September): Discuss with the professor the topic chosen and the main ideas to focus on in the research paper.
Week three: (from the 17th to the 23rd of September): Doing a research on the topic chosen.
Week four (from the 24th to the 30th of September) :
1- Go to McDOnald’s Meknes (make a video)
2- Read the important chapters of the book ‘McDonalization Revisited’
3- Start working on my research paper
Week five: (From the 1st to the 7th of October):
Work on the research paper
Work on the report, using Movie Maker
Week six: (from the 8th to the 15th of October):
Work on the research paper
· Week seven: work on the research paper
· 30th of October: Submit the paper to the professor

Detailed Outline chapter 13: Communication and Culture

Lamiae Mejjane
Chapter 13 Outline: Communication and Culture
Introduction:

• Culture is a way of life
• Mass medi are key components in any nation's culture

Culture Industries:

• Coined by aAdorno and Horkheimer: They developed a theory called 'Critical Theory'
• The Two believed that the real purpose of mass media was to provide ideological justification for the capitalistic soicieties where these industries developed.
• The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 1999, describes culture industries as important national economic resources that allow expressions of creativity to be “copied & boosted by industrial processes and worldwide distribution.”
• Business has its own set of cultural characteristics
• Any organization has its own culture that keeps people attached to it and allows members to identify with it
• We all belong to multiple groups, each with its own characteristics culture, including schools, religious organizations, civic groups, and even neighborhood groups

Transmission of culture:

• Geertz: 'culture is an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life'
• print capitalism: newspapers

How West Dominate in Production of Culture:

• Schiller: Mass Communication and the American Empire
• Nordenstreng and Varis: the one way flow was based on historical conditions related to the introduction of TV and eco. resources and dem. characteristics of the exporters and importers of programs
• Tunstall: the Media are American
• Tomlinsonm: Cultural Imperialism

What Cultures do to defend cultural autonomy?

• Countries with large domestic markets for cultural products always have an advantage in films and television production because they are:
  able to charge less
  able to remain competitive with other exports
  Countries with low productions markets employ these strategies:
  1- Quotas
  2-Subsidies and Grants
  3. Regional alliances (co-productions)
  4.Adaptations of programs produced in other cultures
  5. Resistance measures
  

Not ALl Pop culture is American

•Despite an international film and television market dominated by the U.S., people still tend to prefer their local cultures and local cultural products
•In India, Japan, Russia, and Brazil, 70-90% of television content is produced domestically
•Bollywood music and movies appeal to larger audiences, Indian and non-Indian alike, throughout the world

Role Of Journalists in Production of CultureIs objectivity an unattainable myth?*

• U.S. news formats are adopted by other news organizations. CNN has large influence- sound bites, voiceovers, etc. internationally used
• Journalists are suppsed to detach themselves from what they write

Managing Cultural COnflict:

• Globalization vs. Fragmentation, Jihad vs. McWorld
• Kurdish; not allowed to have their own channel
• broadcast from London to preserve a distictive identity

Hybrid Cultures and the Media

• Melting Pot, hybridity, creolization or glocalization: Mix of cultural frames for all of us
• Amercian Culture
• fusion
• media imperialism: interpreted according to local culture

What we can conclude:

• Journalism, American Style, is also exported around the globe in broadcasts and print media

detailed Outline: Milestones in Communication and National Development

Lamiae Mejjane
I) Introduction
•Communication for development: « the systemic use of social system’s communication resources to stimulate, promote, and support human development. »
•Communication for development strategies: public awareness campaigns, community mobilization, folk media, social marketing, entertainment-education, and advocacy.
•Objectives of communication for development: improve people’ s conditions, promote good governance through people’s participation.
•Purposive communication: « the deliberate use of a social system’s communication resources to encourage individual and collective movement in a preferred direction. » This is not a new practice.
•It should « operate in accord with ethical principle. »
•The importance of speech and language in the sharing of information and achieving common goals.
•Additional communication capacity with the invention of writing, printing, and mass communication.
•The importance of mass media in educating people either formally and informally.
•The general idea of the chapter:
The work of the international development community in the field of
communication for development.
The end of WWII and the creation of the UN gave rise to such contemporary development practices.

II) Post World War II Realities

•The devastating human conditions after World War II
•Development challenges after World War II
•Marshall Plan was a successful module for the reconstruction of Europe, but not with similar success to the other parts of the world
•Development aid become an important item on the international relations agenda.
•Gerald Meier & Dudley Seers point out that major capitalist countries feared that if there was little social progress, former colonies might fall under the communist domination
•In the early postwar years, development projects emphasized the transfer of technologies and techniques to industrialization
•After World War II, the United States and the Soviet union emerged as dominant powers which resulted in the following:
•Using economic, military, & political power to achieve national interests (national security & expansion of spheres of influence.
•The creation of the UN was a mechanism to prevent war and to coordinate the international community’s response to (Poverty, want, fear, ignorance, and disease)

III) What is Development?

•Development is recognized as “a complex integrated, participatory process, involving stakeholders and beneficiaries aimed at improving the overall quality of human life through improvements in a range of social sectors in an environmentally responsible manner”

• Stakeholders are:
  National Government, Politicians, International agencies (USAID, private sector, nongovernmental organizations, an cultural leaders). Stakeholders have the power to hinder the implementation of development projects.
  •The following is a list of the main development challenges facing humanity:
  Elimination of poverty, provision of adequate housing, access to health & lifelong education, food & nutritional sufficiency, functioning physical infrastructure, access to the means of communication and participation in the democratic governance of the society etc.
• Everett Rogers, an influential theorist of the field
  •Several forces have influenced the evolution of the field of communication for development.
  1- Growth of capitalism
  2- Advances in communication technologies
  3- The ideological rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union.
  4- The nature of challenges faced by the colonies.
  •The evolution of the field of communication for development was the influence of changing development paradigms and advances in communication theory.
  •Theory in the field of communication for development has been influencial in mapping the scope and nature of development challenges.
  •Most of the theories that guided the practices of communication for development emerged out of modernization paradigm.
  •Paradigm: is an overarching body of thought whose core assumptions are subscribed to by all who work under its rubric.
  
  The Modernization Model
  •Scholars have referred to three development paradigms:
  •Modernization model
  •The dependency paradigm(dependency critique)
  •The alternative paradigm (another development, or the participatory model)
  •Main dominant discourse on development: modernization through capitalism and communism
  •Modernization perspective held that human society progresses in a linear fashion from traditional societies to modern ones.
  •Traditional society: predominantly rural,maintain status quo, culture practices, and are against capital as a form of wealth.
  •Modernization society: involves materialism, consumerism, and evolution of change.
• Theorists of broadcasting in Develoment Process
  •Daniel Lerner (1958)
  –Voice of America in the Middle East
  –Broadcasting to serve as a “psychic mobilizer”, preventing adoption of Soviet ideology
  •Wilbur Schramm (1964)
  –Broadcasting in nation building
  –Key in constructing national identity
  •Everett Rogers (1962)
  –Most well known for his work on diffusion theory
  –Describes process which new innovations are diffused in a society
  Another Development
  •There is a new perspective on interdependence and a call for increased global cooperation to deal with the global development crisis.
  •There are three important pillars for the new perspective on development
  –Development should strive to eradicate poverty & satisfy basic human needs
  –Priority should be given to “self-reliant & endogenous change processes”
  –Development should be environmentally responsible
• Social Marketing
  •Is the application of commercial marketing ideas to promote and to deliver pro-social interventions
  •Central to the social marketing approach is harmonizing the four essential elements of the social marketing
  –Price
  –Product
  –Promotion
  –Place
  
• Entertainment Education
  •A systematic embedding of pro-social educational messages in popular entertainment format
  •Addresses a wide range of development challenges including
  –Agricultural improvement
  –Adult education
  –Domestic violence prevention
  –Family planning
  –HIV/AIDS prevention
  → Exp: Soap opera, theatre, etc
  
  
  
  

Chapter 6: Detailed outline (Global News and Information Flow in the Internet Age)

Lamiae Mejjane
Dr. Ibahrine
Int. Com.
Global News and Information Flow in the Internet Age
I. Introduction
A. Internet is universally characterized as a revolutionary medium because it has opened up an altogether new world of information and communication
B. Still barriers (digital divide) but the internet is catching on quicker than any previous communication innovation
II. Origin and Early History of News Agencies
A. Selling their product to multiple papers enable news agencies to supply more news more cheaply than a single newspapers
B. Dominant Western News Agencies
1. Agence France-Presse
2. Associated Press
3. Reuters
4. United Press International
C. Non-Western Large World News Agency
1. ITAR-TASS
III. International News Agencies Today
A. Associated Press
B. United Press International
Reuters
D. Agence France-Presse
1. third largest global wire service after AP and Reuters
2. English, Fr , German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic
E. ITAR-TASS and Interfax
1. since 1992, state-owned successor to USSR
2. ITAR-TASS struggles to be credible and mainstream
4. Eng, Fr, German, Spanish and Arabic
IV. Supplemental news agencies
A. Supplemental sources provide more specialized coverage
B. Major U.S. supplemental
-1. New York Times News Service.
2. Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
3. Dow Jones Newswires
V. Broadcast News Services
A. Reuters World News Services
1. breaking news feeds on international news, business, sports,
B. Associated Press Television News, TV and radio
C. TV Broadcasting
1. CNN International
D. Satellite Communicationà More news sources
1. 24 hours news channels with some English programming is available in: Japan, India, China, Egypt, South Korea
2. Al Jazeeraa. fastest growing media network in Arab world and Arabic speaking
3. France is preparing to launch global satellite French news channel in 2006
4. India, soon to be largest English speaking nation in world, will be important player in global media
E. Radio
1. traditionally been seen as propaganda
2. BBC world service and Voice of America
VII. News Flow Patterns: Online and Offline
A. Problems and patterns of traditional media systems:
1. The four main Western news agencies (AP, Reuters, AFP, UPI) control most of the world’s news flow
2. Four Western agencies
3. Next five leading agencies
B. Developing countrie fears:
1. People in the developing world see themselves through Western lens
2. The West determines what is in the public sphere.
3. One-way news flow
4. “Soft” power influences local culture and thought
C. Core and Periphery Problem- Dependency Theory
VIII. The Outlook
A. Growing political and civil liberties à free flow of info
B. Totalitarian and authoritarian govs. still pose obstacles
C. Developing
D. New packaging and new opportunities for need-based online

Chapter 4: Detailed Outline (the transnational media corporation)

Lamiae Mejjane
Dr. Ibahrine
Int. Com

Definition:
Transnational Corporation- (TNC), as a system of organization, represents a natural evolution beyond the multinational corporation of the 1960s and 1970s.
The TNC is the strategic decisions making and allocation of resources based on economic goals and not national boundaries
The commodity sold in TNMC is information and entretainment

1. The Transnational Media Corpation
Two myths concerning the intentions of TNCMs and the people runing them
1. TNMCs operate in all markets of the world- FALSE, TNMCs tend to choose preferred markets, usually home mkt.
2. TNMCs have one singular business approach- FALSE, TNMCs have different strategies depending on their leadership
2. The Purpose of a Global Media Strategy
1. The majority of Trasnational Media Corporations become foreign direct investors gradually and do not set out to do so at the beginning of their companyB. TNMCs begin as a campany that is especcially strong in one or two areas.
3. The Globalization of Marketing
The globalization of markets involves the full integration of transnational business,nation-states, and technologies operating at high speed.
3.1. The Rules of Free Market Trade
· Free market capitalism
· Deregulation
· private sector
· opening of domestic market
· competition and choice
3.2. Foreign Direct Investment
3.2.1. Propriatary and Phisical Assets
3.2.2. Foreign Market Penetration
3.2.3. Production and Distribution Effecencies
3.2.4. Overcoming Regulatory Barriers to Entry
3.2.5. Empire Building
3.3. The Risks Associated with FDI
· Laws and rules of host country.
· Potential political instability.
· Socialist/nationalist govs.
· Anti-foreign business
· Need to do a country risk assessment before investing
4. Transational Media Ownership
4.1. Mergers, Acquisitions, and Strategic Alliances
4.1.1. Mergers: two companies combined into one example Time and Warner à Time Warner in 1989
4.1.2. Acquisitions : one company buys another to add/ acquire the other’s productive capacity Example Viacom buys CBS in 1999
4.1.3. Strategic Alliance : business relationship btwn. 2 or more companies to work towards a collective advantage Exmple Walt Disney licenses Tokyo Disneyland
4.2. When Mergers and Acquisions Fail
4.2.1. The Lack of Compelling Strategic Rationale
4.2.2. Failure to Perform Due Diligence
4.2.3. Post-Merger Planing and Integration failure
4.2.4. Financing and the Problem of Excessive Debt
5. The Media and global Finance
Media and telecommunication entails high start up costs and risk, size and reputation of TNC predict ability to raise capital in foreign mkt.
5.1. The Role of Global Capital Markets
5.2. Capital Markets Loans
5.3. Debt Financing
6. Business and Planing Strategies
6.1. Understanding Core Competency
6.2. Vertical Integration and Cross Media Ownership
6.3. Broadband Communication
7. Transational Medi and The Marketplace of Ideas
7.1. Transnational Media and economic Consolidation
7.2. The Deregulation Paradox
7.3. The Market Place of Ideas
7.4. Global Competition and the Difusion of Authority
7.5. TMNCs and Nation-States

Assignment 2: Reflection on the 2 articles

France decided to launch France 24 due to the non covering of American media of the position of France toward the war in Iraq. Even with a small budget compared to the one of CNN, France24 wants to compete inthe world of images through the broadcast of news through French eyes using different languages such as French and English, and soon also Arabic. This is a good alternative from France to promote its image and culture and reach large audiences. AlJazeera ENglish, on the other hand, wants to influence larger publics through giving them news covered through Arab eyes. In fact, the two channels France24 and Aljazeera English seem to have as an objective influencing people, covering media from a different angle (not like the one the audiences were used to with CNN and BBC) and promoting Arab (in the case of Aljazeera) and French (in the case of France 24) cultures and ways of thinking.
Lamia

Outline Chapter 4: The Transnational Media Corporation and the Economics of Global Competition

Definition:

• Transnational Corporation- (TNC), as a system of organization, represents a natural evolution beyond the multinational corporation of the 1960s and 1970s. The TNC is the strategic decisions making and allocation of resources based on economic goals and not national boundaries
• The commodity sold in TNMC is information and entretainment

1. The Transnational Media Corporation
2. The Purpose of a Global Media Strategy
3. The Globalization of Markets
4. Transnational Media Ownership
5. Media and Global Finance
6. Business and Planning Strategies
7. Transnational Media and The Market Place of Ideas