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This paper will examine the factors that enabled McDonald's, a global food chain, to become a part of the culture of Italy, a country with a deep-rooted culinary culture, through content analysis. While it is impossible to define it with a single definition, we can define the concept of culture as a holistic structure that unites all the values of a society. However, these social values that constitute culture do not have to be solely verbal or written; on the contrary, they can also be formed by non-verbal or symbolic values, such as culinary culture. This is where social memory is formed. Because each society has its own unique culture, a distinct cultural memory emerges in each society. At this point, there are concepts such as globalization that manage the crisis by establishing intercultural connections and eliminating cultural conflict. One of the best examples of this concept is McDonald's, a food chain. With its American Dream mentality, it aims to integrate into the culture of various societies. However, to achieve this in a way that doesn't alienate society's cultural memory, it doesn't neglect to localize its brand by integrating it into the target society's cultural fabric. At the point where it presents its globally presented idea within a local framework, we encounter the concept of glocalization, which allows global products to be offered in local markets. In this way, a brand can become part of a culture. However, in a country like Italy, with a strong and deeply rooted culinary culture, it has faced a multi-layered cultural crisis. In addition to establishing its own flavors in a country with a world-renowned culinary culture, its success in countering the cultural crisis it faced while implementing McDonaldization within the culture to align with the national perspective of a society that values fresh food production and consumption will be examined.
| Keywords | cultural crisis, society, globalization, localization, glocalization, cultural memory, McDonal's, Italy |
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| beyzasahin@istanbul.edu.tr |