unit twelve

Fast Food: Corporate Cuisine & Culture

 

 

case study guidelines

 

CASE STUDY: Fast Food Nation

1) You will begin preparing your case study research by first reading all the assigned materials for that class day. These are the texts everyone in class will read in advance of your session. These reading will introduce you to some important concepts, terms, and ideas. We will read a limited amount in class of Fast Food Nation. You should read the whole book and focus on brining these issues to the whole group.

• Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation (NY: Houhgton Mifflin, 2001)

2) Perhaps you want to preview the videos we will be screening in class, Frontline: Modern Meat which addresses some of the issues of meat safety and McLibel which retraces the issue of McDonald's corporate control.

3) Your cases study should focus on some issues raised by Fast Food Nation that you can then build upon with appropriate additional research. The main goal will be for you to bring these issues to the class who won't have read beyond the introduction to the book. You may want to keep in mind one or more of these big picture issues such as:

• how is food a political question?
• how does fast food reflect issues of politics, social status, and economics?
• why does fast food have a special connection to poverty?
• how is fast food marketed to the poor and to people of color?
• how does fast food target children?
• how is fast food advertisement constructed and marketed?