75074 - Web Society and Globalization

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to distinguish and analyze the different notions of globalization, and how information technologies affect everyday life, markets, and the process of consumption. In particular, the student will be able to: - develop an understanding of Globalization through a sociological lens - understand the culture of the Internet and the relationship between globalization and web society - analyze the impact on individual behaviors and society at large within Social Networks & Online Communities through the mainstreaming of private information posted to the public sphere - frame the emergence of a new rhetoric of democratization and participation in the web society - understand the changing relationship between producers, consumers and prosumers in the web society - recognize consequences and effects of the Digital Divide nationally and worldwide.

Course contents

What does it mean to live in a society where platforms mediate our work, our relationships, and our sense of self — and where algorithms increasingly produce the very culture we consume? This course tackles that question head-on, treating the digital age not as a technical fact but as a sociological battleground: a space of new opportunities for participation and innovation, and, at the same time, of deepening inequalities, eroding privacy, and emerging forms of control.

The course is organized around four interconnected thematic modules. Rather than a chronological or technical overview, it invites students into a critical conversation about how digital technologies — and, increasingly, artificial intelligence — are rewiring contemporary society on a global scale. AI is not confined to a single week: it runs through the entire course as both an object of analysis and a matter of method.

Module 1 — Globalization Reloaded: From the Assembly Line to the Algorithm

We begin by situating the digital age within the longue durée of globalization. From Fordist mass production to the McDonaldization of society, this module traces how rationalization, standardization, and efficiency became the operating system of global capitalism — and asks what happens when that operating system goes algorithmic. Two concepts anchor the discussion: cultural lag, the gap between the speed of technological innovation and the slower pace of social, normative, and institutional adaptation (generative AI being today's most spectacular case); and creative destruction, the process by which new technologies dismantle established structures, producing progress and disruption in the same move. Students will critically assess whether globalization drives cultural homogenization or hybridization, and how digital infrastructures intensify global interdependence.

Module 2 — Platform Society: Living, Scrolling, Being Seen

The second module explores the platformization of social life: how data-driven infrastructures have come to mediate communication, self-presentation, intimacy, and the boundary between public and private. Moving from early internet culture to today's globally integrated platforms, we examine surveillance capitalism, algorithmic visibility, and the mainstreaming of private data as economic raw material. A dedicated focus addresses AI and social media through the lens of critical media literacy: synthetic content, deepfakes, recommender systems, and the human-algorithmic entanglement that shapes what we see, share, and believe. Social networks are analyzed not as neutral tools but as cultural environments that script rituals, identities, and emotional life.

Module 3 — Prosumption: Working for Free in the Digital Economy

The third module turns to the economic engine of digital society: prosumption, the collapse of the producer/consumer divide into a single hybrid figure who creates the very value they consume. From influencers to crowdsourced innovation, students will explore why the working consumer has become central to digital capitalism — and what changes now that prosuming machines enter the scene: AI systems that generate, curate, and consume content with ever-thinner human involvement, forcing us to ask who (or what) produces value in the age of generative AI. We revisit McDonaldization in its digital incarnation, interrogate the promises of participatory culture against the realities of platform extraction, and map resistance and counter-practices — from data cooperatives to platform cooperativism — through which digital actors attempt to reclaim autonomy.

Module 4 — Digital Divides, Digital Sovereignty: The Geopolitics of the Connected World

Finally, the course confronts the uneven geographies of digital access and power. Digital technologies are neither neutral nor universally accessible: they reproduce and often intensify existing inequalities. We unpack the layered concept of the digital divide — access, skills, meaningful use — and its intersections with class, gender, geography, and race. The module then scales up to the geopolitics of the digital: digital sovereignty, the European regulatory experiment (DSA, DMA, AI Act), platform bans, and the prospect of a fragmenting "splinternet," read through a comparative Europe/USA/East Asia lens. We close on a hopeful but clear-eyed note: hybrid physical-digital activism and participation — from hashtag movements that fill real squares to civic platforms and protest cultures — asking when connective action becomes collective action, and when it evaporates into clicktivism.

Readings/Bibliography

Books

• G. Ritzer (2018), The McDonaldization of Society: Into the Digital Age, SAGE Publications.
• J. van Dijck, T. Poell, M. de Waal (2018), The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World, Oxford University Press.

  Articles

• Ritzer, G., Degli Esposti, P. (2020), "Creative Destruction and Cultural Lag in the Digital Age", Sociology Between the Gaps, Vol. 5.
• Ritzer, G., Degli Esposti, P. (2020), "The increasing centrality of prosumption in the digital capitalist economy", Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 45(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11614-020-00422-z
• Ritzer, G. (2015), "Automating prosumption: The decline of the prosumer and the rise of the prosuming machines", Journal of Consumer Culture, 15(3), 407-424.
• Degli Esposti, P. (2025), "Bridging globalization and digital society: George Ritzer's insights on prosumption and the working consumer", Thesis Eleven.
• Degli Esposti, P., Spillare, S., Bonazzi, M. (2024), "AI Imaginaries and Narratives in the Italian Public Discourse: The Impact of ChatGPT", IM@GO.
• Degli Esposti, P., Tirabassi, L. (2024), "The Human-algorithmic Entanglement in the News Realm", Problemi dell'Informazione.

Mandatory course materials (book chapters, articles, papers, documents, videos) will be assigned during the lectures. All references will be available on Virtuale, the University of Bologna online teaching platform.

Teaching methods

The course is held in person and is designed to make the most of the classroom as a shared analytical space — the kind of space platforms keep promising and rarely deliver.

Attendance of at least 80% of the lessons is required.

Sessions combine theoretical framing with hands-on, discussion-driven activities, drawing on innovative teaching formats:

lectures with slides, videos, and live platform walkthroughs(analyzing real interfaces, feeds, and recommender behavior in class);

structured debates and case-study discussions with a comparative Europe/USA/East Asia perspective;

• podcast creation: in small groups, students design and record a short podcast episode on one of the course themes — an exercise in translating sociological analysis into public-facing storytelling;
• one-minute papers and "muddiest point" checks at the end of sessions, to consolidate learning and give the instructor real-time feedback;
• flipped classroom moments: selected materials studied at home, class time devoted to analysis and discussion;
• digital mini-fieldwork: short auto-ethnographic and observational exercises on students' own platform use (feeds, recommendations, data traces), discussed collectively in class;
• group presentations with structured peer feedback;
• collaborative digital tools (e.g., Wooclap) used to extend — not replace — face-to-face interaction;
• screenings of short films and documentary excerpts.

Students are expected to complete the assigned readings before each class and to participate actively: this is a course about participation, and it practices what it preaches.

AI policy. Students are encouraged to explore AI tools critically during the course — they are, after all, part of the course's subject matter. Their use is welcome as a support for study, brainstorming, and language revision, with mandatory disclosure; submitting AI-generated work as one's own is not permitted and constitutes a breach of academic integrity. The use of AI tools is not allowed during exams: the midterm, the final written test, and the oral exam must be completed without AI assistance. We will discuss in class how to use these tools in ways that strengthen, rather than outsource, independent thinking.

Assessment methods

Learning is assessed through one of two pathways, with identical learning outcomes and evaluation standards.

Pathway A — Coursework. Open to students who take part in at least 80% of the lessons and complete the assigned readings before each class. The final grade is based on four components, each worth 25%:

1. Active participation in class debates and activities
2. Individual or group presentation (which may take the form of a podcast episode)
3. Midterm test (short essay or open questions)
4. Final written test (essay-based exam)

All four components must be passed. Students who miss or fail the midterm test may recover it in an extended version of the final written test, as agreed with the instructor.

Pathway B — Final exam. For all other students, the exam consists of two parts, both mandatory:

1. a written test (essay-based, open questions) on the full syllabus;
2. an oral exam, consisting of a presentation on a course topic (presentations topics will be available on a dedicated list on VIRTUALE) and a discussion of the full syllabus and course readings.

The final grade is the combined result of the written and oral parts.

Exam registration. For both pathways, registration on AlmaEsamiis mandatory: 👉https://almaesami.unibo.it/almaesami/welcome.htm

Teaching tools

Classes are held in person, with the support of the SDE Multimedia Laboratory for platform walkthroughs and hands-on sessions.

All teaching materials (slides, readings, additional resources) are made available on the University of Bologna's Virtuale platform. Collaborative digital tools (shared boards, live polling) are used during classes to support discussion and group work.

Students with disabilities or specific learning disorders (SLD) may contact the University services and the instructor to arrange the support and adjustments they are entitled to.

 

Office hours

See the website of Piergiorgio Degli Esposti