George Ritzer

• Phd
• Professor at University of Maryland, College Park

In this article, we re-examine the McDonaldization thesis in light of social changes that occurred since the 1990s and notably in light of the onset of digital forms of consumption. The argument is presented that while the theory of McDonaldization remains profoundly relevant to the consumption of bricks-and-mortar locales, it is even more applicab...

In the year that George Ritzer publishes the ninth edition of The McDonaldization of Society, moving his famous theory firmly Into the Digital Age, critical educator Petar Jandrić and sociologist Sarah Hayes invited George to a dialogue on the digital transformation of McDonaldization and its critical application to Higher Education. In this articl...

This article engages and extends understanding of the interrelated concepts of prosumption, the prosumer, prosumer capitalism, and McDonaldization in relation to the highly commodified and spectacularized world of professional sport. Developing an understanding of modern sport forms as having always exhibited prosumptive dimensions, the discussion...

This commentary deals with the issue of alternative food and drink from the perspective of my work on such topics as disenchantment, enchantment, McDonaldization, nothing, prosumption, rationalisation and something. The conclusion is that the interests of, and pressure from, large-scale profit-making businesses will, to a large extent, undermine ef...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the concern for prosumption, created by Alvin Toffler’s work, and its fusion with Marx’s ideas to create the view that the people now live in an era of prosumer (rather than producer or consumer) capitalism. As a social theorist, the author routinely studies the ideas of classical (and contemporary) t...

In Reply We thank Avasarala for his interest in our article.1 While we share his interest in the advantages of McDonaldization and his concern about its excesses, we do not accept his resignation about its negative aspects. Humans created the McDonaldized aspects of medicine, and humans can change them, especially their negative effects. We can see...

This Viewpoint discusses the consequences of applying the principles of the fast-food restaurant—efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control—to medicine.As put forth in The McDonaldization of Society, “the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society,”1 including medicine (Table)...

While strong arguments can be made that prosumption today can be seen as a primal phenomenon and an evolutionary process, the strongest argument is that it involves a revolutionary set of developments producing a dramatically new world of prosumption. While those developments can be seen in both the material and digital worlds (although they augmen...

Hospitality and the hospitality industry need to be reevaluated in the era of the new prosumer and smart prosuming machines. Traditional notions of hospitality hearken back to an earlier era and ongoing changes are forcing us to reconsider them. Among those changes are the decline of settings that offer hospitality; the decline of employment opport...

This essay builds on and expands the domain of the burgeoning literature on the human prosumer and the process of prosumption. Just as the prosumer and prosumption are finally getting the attention they have always deserved, a dramatic technological change – the rise of smart prosuming machines – is taking place that is reducing the importance of t...

Prosumption, the interrelated process of production and consumption, is increasingly obvious everywhere, but especially on the internet where people "prosume," for example, Facebook pages, Wikipedia entries, and Amazon.com orders. But what is prosumption? Has it evolved out of recent behaviors? Or, is it new and revolutionary? Or, is it what we've...

The first text to provide a comprehensive and academically rigorous introduction to a range of key themes in the field of food, drink and culture. It explores the complex relationships between food and drink, and individuals and society.

This volume gives me the welcome and highly useful opportunity to address Jacques Ellul’s (1964 [1954]) classic work, The Technological Society, from the context of my work on social theory, the McDonaldization of society, and the age of the prosumer. I have found much of utility in the book and also much to criticize. On the positive side, Ellul’s...

Questo articolo affronta il tema del capitalismo del prosumer. Il prosumerismo coinvolge sia la produzione che il consumo anziché che concentrarsi soltanto su un singolo aspetto. Le prime forme di capitalismo (della produzione e del consumo) sono state a loro volta contraddistinte da forme di prosumerismo. Considerando la recente esplosione dell'us...

This is a comment on M. Hoogenboom, D. Bannink, & W. Trommel (2010), ‘From local to grobal, and back’ (Business History, 52(6), 932–954). While great appreciation is expressed for the authors’ effort to test empirically the theoretical ideas developed by G. Ritzer (2007) in The globalization of nothing (2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press)...

This essay provides an introduction to prosumption, the topic of this special double issue of American Behavioral Scientist. The term prosumption was coined by Alvin Toffler in 1980 and refers to a combination of production and consumption. In this introduction, the authors first argue that prosumption is not new but is actually primordial. Many sc...

Substantive Studies of ConsumptionTheories of ConsumptionDissatisfaction in an Age of AbundanceChoice and FreedomThe Sociology of Consumption and the “Great Recession”Conclusion References

Technology is Social: An Introduction to Social Technologies OnlineSocial Networking SitesOther Forms of Digital SocializationThe Self, Subjectivity, and IdentityInequalitiesLabor and ProsumptionConclusions, Insights, and Future DirectionsReferences

Globalization is easily among the most important and contested topics within the contemporary social sciences. Debated in both popular media and academic circles, it has inspired avid proponents and passionate protestors as it reconfigures social relations in all areas of life, lessening and exacerbating inequalities. The world, now instantaneously...

This article deals with the rise of prosumer capitalism. Prosumption involves both production and consumption rather than focusing on either one (production) or the other (consumption). It is maintained that earlier forms of capitalism (producer and consumer capitalism) were themselves characterized by prosumption. Given the recent explosion of use...

Bryant Simon, Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Temple University, knows Starbucks. On the basis of visits to about 425 Starbucks in nine countries and in over twenty states, Simon has created a very readable and highly interesting account of Starbucks and the Starbucks phenomenon. He gathered his "data" while spending fiftee...

This a commentary on the paper by Fink and Mayrhofer published in European J. Cross-Cultural Competence and Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009, pp.42–65. into Polish and is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Organizational Change Management. Setting theoretical stage is never neutral. We know that the choice of assumptions and fundamental metaphors wil...

A „paradigm shift“ seems to be underway in thinking about the economy. It involves a movement away from thinking about separable and distinct producers and consumers and towards a focus on prosumers, or those who are simultaneously involved in both production and consumption.

George Ritzer (2010) recently conceptualized globalization in terms of liquidity and, especially, flows. This conceptualization is largely rooted in Zygmunt Bauman's theory of a world dominated by increasing liquidity. However, neither Bauman nor Ritzer put these ideas in the context of their intellectual genealogy. This essay seeks to do that by r...

This chapter contains section titled: CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION CONCEPTUALIZING SOURCING, OUTSOURCING AND GLOBALIZATION BEYOND ECONOMIC OUTSOURCING TOWARDS A BROADER, MULTIDIMENSIONAL, SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF OUTSOURCING CREATIVE DESTRUCTION AND OUTSOURCING References CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION CONCEPTUALIZING SOURCING, OUTSOURCING AND GLOBALIZATIO...

This chapter contains section titled: Note References Note References

Abstract This article provides a counterpoint to analyses of contemporary sport culture that falsely polarize the global and the local, in a manner that tends to privilege, and indeed romanticize, expressions of the sporting local. Rather than treating them as mutually exclusive categories, this discussion seeks to further the understanding of the...

A reader might have at least two kinds of expectations of a volume such as this one. One is to anticipate finding well-known ideas explored, lines of thinking broadened, and research directions extended. Such a book becomes a valuable summary of not only recent work in the field, but an overview of much of it. It also often offers a sense of where...

In this essay, we will argue that we are witnessing the globalization of nothing. Note that we are not arguing that globalization is nothing; indeed it is clear that the process is of enormous significance. Rather, the argument is, using a term borrowed from Weber, that there is an elective affinity between globalization and nothing. That is, one d...

Vor ungefähr einem Jahr war ich2 wegen der Tagung der American Sociological Association in Chicago. Da ich am letzten Tag vor meiner Abreise noch einige Stunden Zeit erübrigen konnte, beschloss ich, eine kurze Stadtrundfahrt mit dem Bus zu machen, um einige der berühmten Orte früherer und heutiger Zeit zu sehen (z. B. die Viehhöfe, Wrigley Field us...

Ich definiere McDonaldisierung als den Prozess, in dem die Prinzipien des Fastfood-Restaurants immer mehr Sektoren der amerikanischen Gesellschaft wie auch der restlichen Welt dominieren.1 Die jüngeren Probleme von McDonald’s und die vielen Angriffe gegen die Fastfood-Industrie scheinen, oberflächlich betrachtet, anzudeuten, dass wir nun weniger vo...

Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland. His main areas of interest are the sociology work (Working: Conflict and Change and sociological theory (Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science and Toward an Integrated Sociological Paradigm).

1. A Tour of the New Means of Consumption 2. The Revolution in Consumption and the Larger Society 3. Social Theory and the New Means of Consumption 4. Rationalization, Enchantment, and Disenchantment 5. Reenchantment: Creating Spectacle Through Extravaganzas and Simulations 6. Reenchantment: Creating Spectacle Through Implosion, Time, and Space 7....

Seit einigen Jahren wird in den Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften international kaum ein Phänomen so lebhaft diskutiert wie das der Globalisierung. Nachdem die zu Anfang vorherrschende Sichtweise von Globalisierung als Entwicklung einer homogenen Weltkultur zunehmend an Evidenz verlor, rücken die lokal unterschiedlichen kulturellen Praktiken und Per...

Two images of the social geography of the McDonaldization of society suggest themselves: Weber's “iron cage” and Foucault's “carceral archipelago.” Although both are helpful in understanding McDonaldization, neither is satisfactory. On one hand, although the cage-like image fits to a degree, it is certainly not an iron cage because escape remains a...

The concept of “grobalization” is proposed to complement the popular idea of “glocalization.” In addition, a sociologically relevant concept of “nothing” is defined and juxtaposed with “something.” Two continua are created—grobalization-glocalization and nothing-something—and their intersection creates four quadrants: the grobalization of nothing,...

As ballparks have grown in size to accommodate ever larger crowds, they have become increasingly rationalized or McDonaldized. However, rationalization brings with it disenchantment, that is, when they are rationalized, stadiums and other sites of consumption can lose the magical qualities that attract consumers. Recently, in an effort to attract l...

We have shown that metatheorizing is an integral part of theorizing in sociology. We have delineated four overarching philosophical frameworks within which sociological metatheorizing is practiced. Although positivists, hermeneuticists, and critical theorists would all study theory to gain a more profound understanding of it, to produce new theorie...

Postmodern social theory, sociology and social theory the development of postmodern social theory Michael Foucault, part 1 - archaeology of knowledge - genealogy of power Michael Foucault, part 2 - sexuality, power and self Jean Baudrillard, part 1 - the basic theoretical ideas Jean Baudrillard, part 2 - problems in the contemporary world and the p...

This essay argues that the Las Vegas Casino-hotel is a paradigm for the new means of consumption. The new means of consumption are designed to attract and service large numbers of customers by rationalizing their operations while enchanting their setting. Casino-hotels create a spectacular environment usually by simulating well-known attractions fr...

McDonaldization and the exportation of the new means of consumption tend to support the view that in at least some sectors the world is growing more homogeneous than heterogeneous. Against those globalization theorists who tend to focus on the importance of the local and therefore on heterogeneity, the study of McDonaldization and the new means of...

Students can be viewed as consumers of educational services and universities can be seen as means of educational consumption. As such, universities are quite outmoded and have much to learn from the new means of consumption such as credit cards, fast‐food restaurants, megamalls and cybermalls. Viewing universities through the lens of consumption br...

The issue addressed here is whether the spread of rationalization, or what I have termed `McDonaldization', is inexorable. That issue is examined spatially and temporally. Spatially, what we are witnessing is the increasingly global dissemination of rationalization, much of it emanating from the United States. The temporal growth is discussed from...

This paper has three main objectives. The first is to outline the parameters of methodological relationism, a new metatheoretical perspective created to parallel methodological individualism and methodological holism as overarching theoretical perspectives. The second is to demonstrate that social psychology always has been relational and therefore...

The occasion of the publication of Parsons’Marshall Lectures is used to demonstrate Parsons’prescience and the contemporary relevance of his ideas. It is argued that these lectures are similar in intent to the recent work of Amitai Etzioni and his objective of creating the field of socio-economics. The two works are compared and their relative stre...

This paper analyzes recent developments in neo-Marxist theory from a metatheoretical viewpoint. Specifically, the focal concern is with post-Marxism, including analytic, empirically oriented, and postmodern Marxism. The goal is to gain a better understanding of post-Marxism by utilizing the four dimensions (internal-social, internal-intellectual, e...

The invitation to write autobiographically for the Centennial Celebration of the Department of Sociology at the University of Kansas arrived at an opportune moment for me. First, I was in the midst of book in which I was writing about the role of biography and autobiography in metatheoretical work in sociology (Ritzer 1991a). Second, I had just fin...

This paper has several objectives. First, it demonstrates the utility of employing an array of metatheoretical tools (paradigm, paradigm bridging, micro-macro, integrated paradigm, theoretical syntheses) to analyze the recent history of mainstream American sociological theory. Second, it shows that we have moved through three rather well-defined ep...

This paper describes and makes the case for sociological metatheorizing, or the systematic study of sociological theory. Three types of metatheorizing are delineated on the basis of their end products: the attainment of a deeper understanding of theory, the creation of new theory, and the creation of an overarching theoretical perspective (a metath...

A good portion of the current debate over socio-economics and economic sociology has been framed in metatheoretical, particularly paradigmatic, terms. Having done a good deal of work in metatheory in general (Ritzer 1988, 1989b, 1990c), and paradigm analysis in particular (Ritzer 1975, 1981), I would like to address the current work in socio-econom...

The United States is characterized by what may be best described as a “permanently new economy” because radical changes can be expected to continue to occur. Four broad types of change are discussed-those external to the United States, internal changes, changes in technology and knowledge, and demographic shifts. While various subareas within socio...

This is a metatheoretical examination of Simpson's overview of the history of the sociology of work. There is a broad correspondence between changes in the sociology of work and in sociological theory. The early period of the sociology of work was characterized by a micro-focus on creative actors, parallelling the dominance of the similarly oriente...

The Weberian theory of rationalization, especially the concepts of formal and substantive rationality and the conflict between them, are used to analyze contemporary changes affecting the medical profession. Three major types of changes are discussed—changes in government policies, the changing nature of medical delivery systems, and changes within...

In 1983 Richard Hall viewed the sociological study of the professions as near death. However, had Hall examined the recent British literature he would have come to a very different conclusion. Our survey shows that this is a very active area of research and theorizing and that there are important lessons in it for American students of the professio...

The sociological perspectives of Max Weber and the Frankfurt School have been viewed as polarities in much of the recent literature. The Frankfurt sociologists were advocates of a neo-Marxism that stressed dialectical reasoning and rejected the notion of value-neutrality. Weber adhered to the canons of causal logic and cultivated the ideal of objec...