Bridging globalization and digital society: George Ritzer's insights on prosumption and the working consumer

This article explores George Ritzer's sociological contributions to understanding labour and consumption in the digital age. Central to his analysis are the concepts of McDonaldization and prosumption, which reveal how consumer roles have merged with productive labour across physical and digital realms. Ritzer illustrates how globalization and digital technologies − especially Web 2.0 and artificial intelligence − externalize labour onto users, turning them into unpaid content creators and data producers. The rise of platform economies and ‘working consumers’ blurs the boundaries between work and consumption, while corporate rationalization continues through models such as Amazonization. Ritzer's theoretical tools, including the nothing/something continuum and instrumental rationality, help unpack these complex transformations. His work offers a critical lens to analyse how contemporary capitalism exploits user participation, commodifies data, and reshapes agency in an increasingly algorithm-driven society.