Il prosumer sopravvivrà nella società digitale, oppure è stata solo un’utopia? / Will the Prosumer Survive in the Digital Society, or is it Just Utopia?

The objective of this contribution is to describe and analyze the role of the prosumer in contemporary society, through analysis of the literature and the main theoretical sociological approaches. Prosumers activity represent the fuel of Big Data, by a side result of free labor exploitation by the other as the result of an empowerment process of the subject. It is undeniable that analyzing the prosumer’s paradigm gives an opportunity of thinking the evolving power relationship in the global digital society. Our theoretical conception is that the role of the prosumer is the expression of a contradiction, a qualified, but at the same time, exploited person, voluntarily and forcibly, free and yet imprisoned. Our conclusion are placed upon the emphasis on the relationship between man and machine through the theoretical proposal of Ritzer who speculates upon the death of the human prosumer and the advent of prosuming machines, as opposed to our more utopian and romantic vision in which the prosumer can still find space and margins of resistance through its soft power.