Postmodern Theory and Internet George Ritzer

a blog, updated a web page, or uploaded video within the past month)—

constitute the minority (24 percent) (Bernoff, 2009). Among these individuals 

still fewer are involved in anything remotely progressive or transformative. 

Most, in fact, are contributing to an expanding range of promotional, 

entertainment and branding activities.

One widely embraced element of online prosumption is wikis—online sites 

with content that almost anyone can add to or modify. The largest of these 

is the online encyclopedia called Wikipedia. With approximately ten million 

registered English-language users, about 150,000 individuals modify content 

each month. Although the most commonly cited motivation for contributing 

is an interest in sharing information, routinely the site is used to promote 

commercial interests. And while wikis sometimes are portrayed as transcending 

the instrumental logic of accumulation (rekindling, for some, a pre-capitalist 

commons or gift economy), the historical dynamics outlined earlier suggest 

a different future. A profit-making company called Wikia, Inc. thus far has 

established (or has hosted the prosumption of) specialized wikis on more than 

1,500 subjects. According to its CEO, Gil Penchina, the most popular of these 

concern movie franchises and video games, all of which generate revenue by 

linking niche market consumers to corporations, enabling the latter to engage 

prospective customers, utilize their free labour, and exchange information 

with them in order to pursue more personalized (i.e. inter-personal and ‘viral’) 

marketing strategies (Parfeni, 2009).

A more tangible example—one involving the production of material 

commodities—is LEGO’s Digital Designer software program. It enables online 

participants to design and build with virtual LEGO bricks. Once submitted, 

the player/designer is offered their own version of what has been created 

for a price. Virtual models can also be shared and the advice of other LEGO 

enthusiasts solicited. On rare occasions LEGO executives adopt a design and 

manufacture the product for sale in toy stores. In return, the prosumer receives 

‘design recognition’ but not financial compensation (Zwick et al., 2009: 181). 

In this and other instances, beyond exploiting the intelligence of others and 

selling LEGO products, the primary objective of the Digital Designer program 

is marketing—marketing LEGO directly to participants, using them to market 

LEGO by electronically sharing their designs with friends, and utilizing 

participant information for future promotions.

Some might argue that such contributions are empowering in that they constitute 

the engagement of people in creative, productive pursuits. Millions, indeed, take 

part voluntarily without financial incentives. Yet, for centuries, ideas, cultural 

Digital prosumption and alienation ………………………………………………………… Edward Comor

http://openfile.org.uk/archive/gil-leung-things-are-circulating/

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representations and design images either have been shared for no compensation 

or co-opted (simply stolen in the absence of intellectual property rights) by 

capitalists seeking new products and useful information (Huws, 2003: 140-42). 

Such creative inputs, whether or not they are remunerated, have always been 

core components of a production process whose ultimate aim is the realization 

of surplus values. In this context, both the individual paid a wage and the person 

providing a corporation with the intellectual labour needed for new designs, 

marketing strategies and commodity sales share an important commonality: 

both are exploited. Having recognized this, however, the more salient issue 

for our analysis of alienation is whether or not these contributions entail the 

dehumanization of participants as mere tools of the production process.

The prosumer: Capitalist tool or creative worker?

For decades, proponents of prosumption specifically and ICTs more generally 

have, for the most part, forecast an empowered civil society. With more people 

engaged in ‘immaterial labour’ or ‘knowledge work’, they argue, corporations 

will lose control of their traditional levers of power. Indeed, the ‘smart’ firm 

will consciously empower its employees using ICTs to help them become 

more productive and creative (Drucker, 1992; Tapscott and Williams, 2006) 

while, for radical observers, market pressures will compel capitalists to furnish 

disparately located workers with the tools needed to organize themselves in 

prospectively revolutionary forms (Negri, 1989).

Little empirical evidence exists to substantiate either of these flattening-of-

hierarchy assumptions.

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 In fact numerous studies show quite the opposite: that 

the ‘information society’ and prosumer-enabling technologies serve powerful 

interests in their efforts to increase disparities (Rule and Besen, 2007). The main 

reason for this is that the core structures and media of status quo relations—

private property, the wage labour contract, and the price system—remain intact 

and pervasive. In practice, ICTs have been developed and applied in ways that 

have widened and deepened the reach of these very institutions.

ICTs, no doubt, have enabled organizations to shed middle-management 

positions, yet new technologies have also been applied to extend control over  

production, distribution, exchange and consumption (arguably, neoliberal 

globalization would not have been possible without these capabilities). 

Moreover, ICTs are being used to increase the monitoring and surveillance 

of workers, and to extend corporate control over what and how employees 

communicate. Globalized companies—from the Gap to McDonald’s to WalMart— 

now, for example, use technologies to standardize worker performance 

Digital prosumption and alienation ………………………………………………………… Edward Comor

http://openfile.org.uk/archive/gil-leung-things-are-circulating/

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