Reinterpreting Baudrillard's consumer society in the digital age: a study of international students' electronic consumer culture in China

In the digital era, consumption extends beyond goods to experiences, information and identities encountered through screens. Smartphones, tablets and computers now mediate access to a continuous flow of images, messages and commodities, shaping how cultural meanings are perceived and internalized (Dant, 1999). Via algorithms, personalization and platform design, screens regulate visibility, steer preferences and normalize routine consumption. These shifts prompt a reassessment of consumer culture and the extent to which classical theories still account for its symbolic and social dimensions (Baudrillard, 1983; Koch & Elmore, 2006).

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) traced the shift from production-centered economies to societies where consumption is the dominant social logic. For him, consumer culture constructs desires and identities through symbols: media and advertising assign symbolic value to objects, turning commodities into markers of status, lifestyle and aspiration. As consumption detaches from material need, individuals enter cycles of desire and display, and reality itself is destabilized as simulations substitute for the real, Baudrillard's “hyperreality” (Baudrillard, 1983). Though widely cited, several of his concepts remain underexamined empirically. In particular, object dominance, abundance/accumulation, the myth of happiness and the myth of poverty offer a powerful yet underutilized lens, emphasizing that consumption is driven less by utility than by novelty and fleeting satisfaction (Koch & Elmore, 2006). This study adapts Baudrillard's framework to digital contexts defined by algorithmic curation and social metrics. We conceptualize digital symbolic consumption in environments where visibility is ranked, tracked and personalized. Accordingly, we operationalize his four concepts into measurable constructs: object dominance as algorithmic curation; abundance/accumulation as endless scroll; the myth of happiness as quantified affect (likes, shares and followers); and the myth of poverty as digital exclusion and under-personalization. Survey items aligned to these dimensions render Baudrillard's abstract ideas empirically testable.

Despite the rapid spread of algorithmic recommendation systems, personalization tools and metric-based forms of social validation in everyday consumption, much of the Baudrillard-inspired literature on digital consumption remains largely interpretive. This situation points to a fairly concrete measurement gap. Without validated constructs that can translate sign-based processes, such as algorithmic visibility, scroll abundance and overchoice, quantified affect or forms of data and visibility poverty, into observable indicators, comparing results across platforms or populations becomes difficult, and cumulative empirical work is hard to sustain. The need to address this gap is becoming more important. Platform design choices tend to scale quickly and, over time, normalize metric-oriented identity work, ongoing social comparison, and forms of attention extraction, particularly among young adult users. At the same time, the field still appears to lack portable measurement tools that would allow these dynamics to be examined empirically in a systematic and comparable way.

Building on this operationalization, we advance falsifiable claims that guide empirical analysis. First, we expect that psychosocial and symbolic variables, such as personalization, digital identity curation and peer influence, will exert a stronger predictive influence on the Transformation of Consumer Culture Index (TCCI) than purely technological variables such as device use or infrastructure. Second, we hypothesize that digital interfaces transform Baudrillard's four dimensions in ways distinct from the material consumer society of his era, producing new forms of symbolic abundance, rapid obsolescence and algorithmically mediated happiness promises. These claims are not abstract affirmations of Baudrillard's relevance but propositions that can be tested using survey data and statistical modeling.

Digital technologies such as e-commerce, mobile platforms and social media have profoundly reshaped consumer society by embedding consumption within algorithmically mediated environments (Lehdonvirta, 2013). While classical accounts of consumer society emphasize the symbolic role of commodities, contemporary research highlights how platforms transform visibility, identity and social comparison into new arenas of consumption (Bartosik-Purgat & Mińska-Struzik, 2022). This shift requires revisiting Jean Baudrillard's framework of consumer culture, not only to assess its ongoing relevance but also to examine how its core dimensions, object dominance, abundance and accumulation, the myth of happiness and the myth of poverty, are reconfigured in the digital age (Zeller, 2015).

Baudrillard's notion of object dominance emphasized how commodities functioned as signs conferring distinction and status (Stanić, 2016; Maslov, 2009). In platform societies, this dominance continues but is increasingly mediated through digital symbolism and algorithmic visibility. Recognition now depends less on material ownership than on the capacity to be seen within algorithmic infrastructures through likes, followers or feed prominence (Woods & Scott, 2017; Crocetti et al., 2025). In digital markets, abundance manifests as overchoice and planned obsolescence. E-commerce interfaces present consumers with an overwhelming array of options, leading to decision fatigue (Khairul Anam & Rifqi, 2025), whereas platform updates and app redesigns introduce a form of software-driven obsolescence (Barros & Dimla, 2021). Simultaneously, the logic of the attention economy reframes scarcity as cognitive rather than material, as consumers must allocate limited attention across infinite streams of content (Park, Gonzalez-Perez, & Floriani, 2020; Koujel & Major, 2024).

The myth of happiness, which Baudrillard described as an illusory promise continually deferred, now operates through a quantified affect. Happiness is measured by digital metrics, such as likes, shares and follower counts, which produce cycles of social comparison and dissatisfaction (Zazz, 2023). Thus, platforms transform affect into a visible, countable commodity, reinforcing hyperreality in normal life. The myth of poverty and the paradox of exclusion in societies of abundance take on new shapes in digital contexts. Inequality emerges not only through access gaps but also through algorithmic marginalization. Those with limited data profiles or whose content is deprioritized remain invisible in digital marketplaces (Brantner & Stehle, 2021). This form of exclusion reflects symbolic rather than material poverty, which causes the inability to generate recognition within algorithmic systems. These shifts are summarized in Table 1, which contrasts Baudrillard's classical framework with its digital reformulations.

While Baudrillard offers a powerful lens on symbolic consumption, his framework has been criticized for its abstraction and resistance to empirical testing (Grǎdinaru, 2011). To render his concepts measurable in digital contexts, it is useful to engage with complementary theoretical traditions (Pavlyuchenko & Dion, 2024). For instance, Bourdieu's theory of distinction explains how cultural capital shapes taste and stratification, but it does not fully account for the algorithmic infrastructures that allocate visibility (Ruckenstein & Granroth, 2020). Affordance theory helps translate abstract concepts into the observable features of platforms, such as interface design or algorithmic nudges (Pavlyuchenko & Dion, 2024). More broadly, van Dijck, Poell and de Waal's framework of the platform society situates consumer practices within infrastructures of personalization and prediction, aligning with Baudrillard's insight that sign's structure social life but extending it toward the political economy of data extraction (Malesija, 2025). The attention economy literature also sharpens our understanding of why digital abundance produces strain rather than freedom. These rival and complementary perspectives not only help clarify the operationalization of Baudrillard's categories but also justify why his framework continues to add incremental explanatory value to digital consumer studies (de Carvalho, de Araujo, & de Vasconcellos, 2023; Marković, Popović, & Andjelković, 2024). These connections are explained in Table 2, which positions alternative frameworks alongside Baudrillard to demonstrate the overlaps, contrasts and bridges for empirical research.

Baudrillard's theories remain vital for understanding consumer society and its effects on culture, subjectivity and contemporary social structures. Across numerous studies, his ideas offer sharp insights into the dynamics of modern consumerism, especially within digital and post-industrial societies. Kultura Polisa explores Baudrillard's early works, particularly the concept of the system of things and its relationship with consumer society, and discusses how the market economy commodifies social homogenization and hegemony through consumption (Polisa, 2021). Purwanti and Mas'ud investigate how Baudrillard’s concept of consumption as the consumption of signs aligns with contemporary consumption patterns, emphasizing the shift from utility-based consumption to symbolic consumption in post-industrial society (Purwanti & Mas'ud, 2019). Xavier introduced the notion of dreams as a lens to examine consumerism’s impact on the human psyche; By studying night dreams, he revealed how consumerism’s imagination infiltrates and colonizes subjectivity, highlighting the pervasive nature of consumerism in the individual’s inner world (Xavier, 2013). Habib examines the importance of culture and consumerism through Baudrillard's works and considers Baudrillard's “Simulacra and Simulacrum” a pivotal theory in defining modernism from the perspective of culture and consumerism (Habib, 2018). Grǎdinaru provides a comprehensive interpretation of Baudrillard's theory of consumption and emphasizes its continuing relevance in the analysis of contemporary society. She examines how Baudrillard's ideas are framed within contemporary French philosophy and influence its process of change (Grǎdinaru, 2011). Nouri et al. show that cultural norms and values shape social-commerce behavior in social networks; this yields three higher-order drivers, cultural perception, transactional dynamics and a quartet of market values, that influence technology perceptions, platform trust and purchase decisions, with consumption tied to identity and social differentiation (Nouri Dehnavi & Sioofy Khoojine, 2025).

Prior research generally suggests that Baudrillard continues to offer a useful lens for interpreting digital consumption, though two limitations appear to constrain cumulative knowledge in this area. To begin with, many studies lean heavily on conceptual analogy, rather than on clearly specified indicators that would allow findings to be replicated or compared across contexts. In addition, work on digital consumer culture tends to examine symbolic or psychosocial processes, such as identity curation, social comparison or metricized forms of recognition, separately from more infrastructural or behavioral dynamics, including device dependence, obsolescence pressures or experiences of overchoice. These two sets of mechanisms are rarely evaluated together within a single empirical framework. The present study seeks to address these gaps. It does so by translating Baudrillard's four dimensions into twelve measurable constructs, testing the validity of their latent structure and assessing how the resulting higher-order dimensions relate to the cultural transformation.

Baudrillard's Consumer Society remains foundational for analyzing consumption's symbolic dynamics, yet today's platformized, algorithmic environment has reshaped how those dynamics operate. This study asks how the shift from a twentieth-century consumer society to an electronic, platform-mediated one transforms core mechanisms of consumption and ideology.

To guide this inquiry, we pose three research questions:

This study pursues two objectives: first, to operationalize Baudrillard's theorization of consumption into empirical measures suited to digital environments; and second, to assess whether the resulting evidence confirms, extends or challenges his claims. The findings re-specify consumer ideology for platformed contexts, happiness as digital recognition, poverty as algorithmic invisibility and abundance as decision fatigue, while adapting Baudrillard's framework to account for contemporary transformations in culture, power and consumer subjectivity.

Baudrillard's The Consumer Society posits four dimensions of consumption: object dominance, abundance/accumulation, the myth of happiness and the myth of poverty. In the digital era, these persist but take new forms through platforms, algorithms and interfaces. This section reinterprets each and maps them to measurable constructs for the study.

Object dominance. Baudrillard argued that objects in consumer society operate less as utilitarian goods and more as signs conferring identity and social status. In digital environments, this symbolic dominance has shifted toward digital symbolism and algorithmic visibility (Stocchetti, 2014). Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and e-commerce sites elevate brands, lifestyles and influencers not only through cultural meaning but also through algorithmic recognition (Fiers, 2020). Commodity fetishism, once tied to material goods, now extends to digital artifacts such as Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), skins in gaming and virtual fashion, where scarcity and exclusivity are coded into intangible assets (Ruckenstein & Granroth, 2020). Meanwhile, profiling, targeted advertising and influencer promotion objectify consumer behavior, producing new forms of alienation as individuals curate idealized online identities while feeling pressured to conform to shifting digital trends. Recognition becomes less about material ownership and more about visibility in algorithmic infrastructures, who or what is amplified, ranked, and made symbolically valuable (Woods & Scott, 2017).

Abundance and accumulation. For Baudrillard, abundance and accumulation create a cycle in which goods proliferate, signs multiply, and consumption becomes endless. In the digital age, abundance is intensified through overchoice, planned obsolescence and the attention economy. Online platforms present consumers with overwhelming options, producing decision fatigue and complicating rational choices. Planned obsolescence, once material, is now software-driven: rapid updates, incompatible versions and redesigns pressure users into continuous upgrading (Wang, Mo, & Ho, 2023). At the same time, abundance is not merely material but cognitive. The logic of the attention economy reframes scarcity as a matter of focus, with consumers competing with platforms' endless flows of content, notifications and personalized recommendations. Thus, accumulation in digital consumer culture is not only about acquiring goods but also about sustaining constant engagement within infrastructures designed to maximize attention.

Myth of happiness. Baudrillard argues that the promise of happiness through consumption is an ideological mirage: satisfaction is always postponed, never fully secured. In digital consumer culture, this logic plays out through quantified feelings and constant comparisons. Platforms turn emotions into public tokens, such as likes, shares, follows and reactions, which circulate as stand-ins for well-being. Happiness has become less of a private experience than a visible score, feeding cycles of comparison, competition and, ultimately, dissatisfaction. Influencer culture and hyper-personalized ads reinforce “false needs” by staging curated lives as attainable models of fulfillment (Baudrillard, 1975). Meanwhile, self-tracking apps and algorithmic recommendations measure and steer moods and desires, translating vague longings into data points and prompts for further engagement. In this light, Baudrillard's emphasis on signs remains apt: what passes for happiness online is often the circulation of its sign, which can crowd out the texture of contentment.

Myth of poverty. A parallel paradox appears in his account of poverty. In affluent societies, deprivation is less material than symbolic, exclusion from recognition. Online, this exclusion takes the form of digital inequality and algorithmic marginalization. Access to personalization, visibility and participation is uneven: users with rich data histories receive tailored recommendations and greater exposure, while those with sparse, “noisy,” or privacy-guarded profiles struggle to be seen at (Whalen & Kellner, 1991). This “data poverty” shows how algorithms not only allocate attention but also stratify users, producing new hierarchies of inclusion and neglect. Beyond familiar gaps in devices or connectivity, the fault line is increasingly symbolic invisibility, being unrecognized, impersonalized or unsurfaced by the systems that mediate public life. Scarcity, in other words, has become informational and relational, extending Baudrillard's insight into the conditions of the digital age. As summarized in Figure 1, Baudrillard's core motifs map onto platform-era mechanisms, planned obsolescence, influencer culture, algorithmic marginalization and virtual brands, providing the conceptual bridge for our reframing of visibility dominance, quantified affect and data/visibility poverty. Key Differences Between Baudrillard's Consumer Society and E-Consumerism are summarized in Table 3.

For empirical testing, the twelve constructs are treated as indicators of three broad mechanism families in platform consumption. The first family concerns psychosocial–symbolic processes (e.g. identity curation, social comparison, quantified recognition and relational strain). The second concerns infrastructural and behavioral engagement routines (e.g. device dependence, digital brand symbolism, valuation of virtual goods and perceived obsolescence). The third concerns decision and constraint mechanisms (e.g. overchoice/decision fatigue, privacy–personalization tensions, unequal access and platform-mediated discovery). The factor structure that best represents these constructs is evaluated empirically in Section 3; however, the hypotheses below are derived from this theoretical grouping of mechanisms.

The study's central claim is that platform-era consumer culture is reshaped not only through expanded technological access but also through sign-based and psychosocial dynamics that reorganize recognition, comparison and identity work. To reflect this, we develop hypotheses at the level of mechanism families rather than assuming a specific number of latent factors a priori.

First, psychosocial–symbolic mechanisms, such as identity curation, social comparison, metricized recognition, hyperreality and perceived relational thinness should be closely aligned with perceived consumer–culture transformation, because they reflect how platform visibility and approval signals become culturally meaningful markers of value and status.

Second, infrastructural and behavioral engagement mechanisms, including device dependence, digital brand symbolism, valuation of virtual commodities and perceived obsolescence pressure, are expected to covary with consumer–culture transformation insofar as they normalize continuous connectivity, rapid cycles of novelty and routine platform-mediated acquisition.

Third, decision and constraint mechanisms, such as overchoice and decision fatigue, privacy, personalization tradeoffs, unequal access and perceptions of platform control over discovery, are expected to be associated with consumer–culture transformation because they capture how abundance and exclusion are experienced under algorithmic governance and data-driven market mediation.

Consistent with the cross-sectional design, these hypotheses are tested as directional associations using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The present study derives its empirical model directly from Baudrillard's theoretical framework, which emphasizes four foundational dimensions of consumer society: object dominance, abundance and accumulation, the myth of happiness, and the myth of poverty. To adapt these dimensions to digital realities, each was transformed into a measurable framework that reflects consumer behavior in an electronically consumer society. This translation resulted in 12 operational variables, all measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). This survey was conducted between February 1 and the end of February 2025, employing a structured online questionnaire administered to 200 students from Turkiye, Iran, and Pakistan, enrolled at universities in Shanghai. The questionnaire consisted of two primary sections: the first section collected demographic information and data on participants' purchasing behavior, and the second section included items corresponding to the 12 variables outlined in Table 4.

Table 4 presents the mapping between the four theoretical dimensions and their corresponding digital constructs. Each construct is listed alongside its abbreviation, number of survey items, and an illustrative item. For example, the construct Digital Consumer Culture (DCC) was operationalized with three items capturing the degree to which platforms mediate product discovery, while Hyperreality & Digital Identity (HRDI) was represented by items that assessed the perceived significance of online identity compared to offline selfhood.

The dependent construct, the TCCI, was designed to capture the broader outcome of Baudrillard's theoretical translation into digital settings. TCCI was modeled reflectively using 3 items (Cronbach's α = 0.84), such as “Digital platforms have reshaped what products symbolize for me” and “Consumer identity today is constructed mainly through digital interactions.” All constructs were modeled reflectively, as individual items were assumed to represent manifestations of an underlying latent trait rather than to formatively define it. Content validity was established using a three-stage process. First, an expert panel of three people specializing in sociology, digital media, and consumer psychology reviewed the constructs and items for their coverage and clarity. Second, a pre-test involving 25 international students was conducted to ensure comprehensibility and appropriate survey length. Third, to ensure cross-linguistic equivalence across the diverse sample, items were translated from English into Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, and then back-translated into English. Discrepancies between the original items and their back-translated versions were reviewed together with the expert panel, and revisions were made until conceptual equivalence, in terms of meaning and intent, appeared to be preserved across languages. Pilot pre-test participants were also asked to note any terms that felt confusing or unnatural in their respective language versions. On the basis of this feedback, minor wording adjustments were introduced, while the response anchors were kept identical across all versions.

This study employed a cross-sectional survey design administered in Shanghai, China, in February 2025. The survey targeted international students from Türkiye, Iran, and Pakistan, selected purposively to represent a mobile population arriving from comparatively less digitized consumer environments and entering one of the world's most platformized e-commerce settings. This transition context provides a theoretically informative contrast for examining how algorithmic consumer infrastructures relate to perceived consumer–culture transformation. The sampling rationale is also consistent with cross-national ICT indicators reported by the International Telecommunication Union, which document variation in Internet use and broadband capacity across the countries represented in the study (International Telecommunication Union). By situating the survey in China, a global leader in e-commerce and digital innovation, the design enabled a contrast between students' original digital environments and their current immersion in a highly digitized context that is constantly evolving.

Participants were recruited via mailing lists and moderated WeChat groups for foreign students. The eligibility criteria required respondents to be at least 18 years old, have resided in China for a minimum of six months and to be enrolled at the bachelor's, master's or doctoral level. The final sample comprised 200 respondents, evenly distributed by gender (55% female and 45% male). To account for baseline variations in exposure to digital infrastructure, a Prior Digital Exposure Index (PDEI) was administered. This index consisted of three items measuring the duration of smartphone ownership, quality of home-country internet access and frequency of online shopping prior to arrival in China. Table 5 provides an overview of the sample demographics and PDEI index for three studied countries.

All constructs were measured using Likert-type items anchored between 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). Reliability and validity assessments indicated satisfactory psychometric properties of the scale. Cronbach's alpha values ranged between 0.72 and 0.86, while composite reliabilities (CRs) ranged between 0.74 and 0.89. Convergent validity was established with average variance extracted (AVE) values exceeding the 0.50 threshold for all constructs except Virtual Commodity Fetishism (VCF, AVE = 0.47), which was considered acceptable given a CR of 0.76. Discriminant validity was confirmed using the Fornell–Larcker criterion and HTMT values below 0.85.

All analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics (V.27) and IBM SPSS AMOS (V.27). Descriptive statistics and preliminary screening were conducted in SPSS. The latent structure of the 12 operational constructs was explored via exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation), with factor retention guided by eigenvalues, scree inspection and parallel analysis; sampling adequacy was evaluated using KMO and Bartlett's test. The resulting measurement model was then tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in AMOS, and the hypothesized associations between the higher-order factors and TCCI were examined using SEM. Model fit was evaluated using chi-square, CFI, TLI, RMSEA and SRMR, and construct reliability and validity were assessed using Cronbach's alpha, CR, AVE, Fornell–Larcker and HTMT. To reduce common-method variance, we applied procedural remedies and conducted statistical diagnostics (Harman's single-factor and marker-variable tests).

To examine the latent structure of the constructs, EFA was conducted using principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation, reflecting the theoretical expectation of correlated factors. Descriptive statistics and the EFA were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics (V.27), and CFA and SEM were conducted using IBM SPSS AMOS (V.27) with maximum-likelihood estimation. EFA is used here to examine whether the hypothesized mechanism families consolidate into a smaller set of higher-order dimensions suitable for subsequent SEM tests of H1–H3.

Sampling adequacy was confirmed by a Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of 0.87 and a highly significant Bartlett's test of sphericity (χ²(66) = 742.5, p < 0.001). Given N = 200 and 12 observed variables (N:p ≈ 17:1), together with high sampling adequacy (KMO = 0.87) and strong communalities (0.62–0.85), the dataset meets commonly cited recommendations for stable exploratory factor solutions.

Table 6 presents the communalities of all 12 variables. The values ranged from 0.62 to 0.85, indicating that the retained factors explained a substantial portion of the variance in each observed variable. Importantly, all 12 constructs were retained in the factor structure, addressing prior concerns about missing variables.

The eigenvalue criterion and parallel analysis indicated that a three-factor solution was most appropriate. The first three factors accounted for 63.6% of the variance, as shown in Table 7.

The rotated factor loadings are presented in Table 8. The variables aligned cleanly with three conceptual dimensions: psychological and social influences (Factor 1), technological engagement and behavior (Factor 2), and decision-making, access and control (Factor 3).

Table 9 summarizes the structure of the three latent dimensions and their corresponding variables.

A CFA was subsequently conducted to validate the three-factor model. The model demonstrated acceptable fit: χ²/df = 2.13, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.93; TLI = 0.91; SRMR = 0.062; RMSEA = 0.075 (90% CI [0.061–0.089]). All standardized loadings were above 0.60, and AVE and CR values further supported convergent validity. These results confirm the robustness of the three-factor structure identified in the EFA.

Following the EFA, the next step involved testing the proposed measurement and structural models through SEM. SEM was chosen because it allows simultaneous assessment of both the measurement properties of latent constructs and the structural relationships among them, providing a more rigorous test of the theoretical framework derived from Baudrillard's four key dimensions of consumption.

Results from CFA demonstrated that all standardized loadings exceeded 0.70 and were statistically significant at p < 0.001, indicating strong convergent validity (see Table 10). CR values ranged from 0.88 to 0.91, and AVE values ranged from 0.64 to 0.72, exceeding recommended thresholds. Discriminant validity was assessed using the Fornell–Larcker criterion, with the square root of AVE for each construct exceeding the correlations with other constructs (see Table 11). Together, these results confirm that the measurement model demonstrates satisfactory reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.

The structural model assessed the relationships between the three latent constructs and the dependent outcome, TCCI. Figure 2 presents the estimated model, including standardized path coefficients. The model demonstrated acceptable global fit: χ²(120) = 275.4, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.94; TLI = 0.92; RMSEA = 0.056; SRMR = 0.047. These indices suggest that the model provides a good representation of the observed data.

As shown in Table 12, all three higher-order constructs were positively and significantly associated with TCCI. Psychological and Social Influences (β = 0.42, p < 0.001) emerged as the strongest predictor, indicating that factors such as digital identity, social influence and symbolic recognition were related to higher perceptions of consumer culture transformation. Decision-Making, Access and Control (β = 0.31, p < 0.001) also had a significant showed the strongest association, suggesting that issues of overchoice, personalization and privacy meaningfully shape consumption experiences. Technological Engagement and Behavior (β = 0.28, p < 0.001) showed a smaller but still significant association with TCCI, consistent with links between technological dependence, product symbolism and obsolescence and patterns of digital consumption.

Figure 2 presents a structural equation model in which three exogenous, higher-order constructs, Psychological and Social Influences (PSI), Technological Engagement and Behavior (TEB), and Decision-Making, Access and Control (DMAC), are modeled as jointly associated with the endogenous latent construct, TCCI. The path coefficients indicate positive associations between PSI (β = 0.42), DMAC (β = 0.31) and TEB (β = 0.28) and TCCI, while the exogenous constructs exhibit moderate intercorrelations (r ≈ 0.52–0.56), suggesting related but distinct domains. The measurement model shows that PSI is reflected by DHSC, CBSI, DLSC and HRDI; DMAC by ODF, DI, DPP and DCC; and TEB by two first-order dimensions, TD and DSBP, which, in turn, are associated with VCF and PO, respectively. Factor loadings across indicators are substantial (approximately λ ≈ 0.70–0.89), and TCCI is measured by three strongly loading indicators (TCCI1–TCCI3). Overall, the model posits that psychosocial influences, technology engagement, and decision/access structures are each independently associated with the transformation of consumer culture and ideology.

The SEM results are consistent with the view that Baudrillard's four theoretical dimensions can be operationalized as measurable constructs that help account for variation in digital consumer culture. Rather than technological engagement alone being associated with transformation, the findings highlight the salience of psychological and social influences mediated through digital interfaces. Decision-making burdens and privacy concerns, captured under DMAC, are also associated with how abundance, accumulation and inequality are experienced in digital contexts. Collectively, these results provide empirical support for associations consistent with Baudrillard's framework in digital environments, offering interpretive insight into the symbolic and structural logic of consumption.

This study builds a testable framework for platformed consumer life, arguing that online cultural change is driven more by symbols, recognition and social comparison than by devices or usage metrics. The model integrates three forces, PSI, TEB and DMAC, to explain how meanings are produced, circulated and internalized, culminating in a TCCI. We align Baudrillard's “object dominance” with algorithmic visibility that recognition depends less on owning things than on being amplified, liked, followed and ranked. Within PSI, Hyperreality and Digital Identity (HRDI) and Digital Happiness and Social Comparison (DHSC) capture the symbolic mechanisms that make visibility consequential. When HRDI and DHSC move together, they operationalize Baudrillard's sign logic for platforms: value accrues to what the algorithm shows, shifting power from material possession to symbolic recognition. Within DMAC, Overchoice and Decision Fatigue (ODF), Data Privacy and Personalization (DPP) and Digital Inequality (DI) recast “abundance/poverty”: abundance becomes overchoice that drains agency; poverty becomes (in)visibility through exclusion from personalization or structural underexposure. TEB bundles Technology Dependence (TD), Digital Symbolism and Brand Perception (DSBP), Value–Cost Frictions (VCF) and Planned Obsolescence (PO). TEB supplies the rails, connectivity, refreshed lines and branded cues, while PSI supplies the propulsion, visibility, signaling and identity. As shown in Figure 3, positioning mechanisms along psychosocial and technological axes clarify why algorithmic visibility sits in the high-PSI/high-technology quadrant, whereas digital inequality clusters in the low-PSI/low-technology corner.

Baudrillard's thesis on consumer society does not disappear under conditions of digital consumption. Instead, its core logic appears to shift. Where twentieth-century consumer culture revolved around ownership of objects as markers of distinction, platform economies relocate this function to visibility itself. Recognition is no longer primarily tied to what one owns, but to how one is ranked, recommended, or rendered visible through metrics. In this sense, the “object” organizing social differentiation is often an algorithmic proxy, such as a profile, feed position, review score or follower count, rather than a tangible good. This shift may help explain why the PSI shows the strongest association with the TCCI. Processes like identity curation, social comparison and experiences of hyperreality seem to sit closest to the point where consumption takes on ideological and cultural significance under platform conditions, rather than remaining a matter of technical use alone.

Seen from this angle, international students in Shanghai can be understood as transitional consumers. Their everyday consumption is practical in the sense that it involves learning a new ecology of apps, norms and interface signals, but it is also deeply symbolic. Navigating a highly digitized and culturally dense city requires not only functional competence, but also ongoing negotiation of status and belonging. Status, in these settings, is increasingly enacted through digital signs, visibility, ratings, branded symbols or curated self-presentation, and sustained through platform routines such as continuous browsing, responsiveness to trends and choices made with algorithmic consequences in mind. The three higher-order factors identified empirically can thus be read as a rough cultural profile of e-consumption. PSI seems to capture a status and recognition layer centered on visibility, comparison, and identity work. TEB, by contrast, reflects a layer of habitual engagement, including dependence, brand symbolism, the valuation of virtual commodities and expectations of rapid obsolescence. DMAC appears to register a constraint or strain layer, where overchoice, decision fatigue, privacy–personalization tensions and digital inequality become salient.

The findings also clarify several risks associated with platform-based consumer culture among internationally mobile students. One issue concerns overchoice and decision fatigue. Digital abundance, rather than being experienced simply as freedom, is often felt as a cognitive and attentional burden. A second tension emerges around privacy and personalization. Personalized services may be perceived as convenient or even inclusive, yet they are simultaneously associated with surveillance and a loss of control. A third concern relates to loneliness and shallow connections within the PSI domain. Social interaction in heavily mediated environments appears to intensify comparison, while not consistently producing a sense of belonging. Taken together, these patterns suggest that what is often framed as “digital happiness” tends to be operationalized through quantified affect – visible signals of approval – rather than through more stable forms of well-being. This reading aligns closely with Baudrillard's argument that happiness circulates as a sign: constantly pursued, highly visible and persistently difficult to secure.

Cultural background is also likely to shape how platform signs are read and internalized. Students from Türkiye, Iran and Pakistan may bring different cultural scripts concerning status display, norms of modesty, family or community reference points, and levels of institutional trust. These factors can influence sensitivity to social comparison, attitudes toward privacy and the meanings attached to brands or symbolic visibility. Although the cross-sectional design does not allow for direct tests of cultural moderation, the Shanghai context – where platform infrastructures are especially developed – renders these dynamics more visible. It sharpens the contrast between prior and current digital environments and highlights how culture mediates the interpretation of platform metrics as indicators of worth. Future research could extend this line of inquiry through multi-group CFA or SEM, as well as by pairing survey data with digital-trace or diary methods to track how these meanings shift over time.

Our findings triangulate Baudrillard's sign-driven consumption with adjacent theories while clarifying their blind spots. Bourdieu explains stratification via taste and cultural capital but under-specifies the infrastructures that now allocate status; on platforms, ranking and recommendation – not possession – produce visibility. Signaling theory captures brands and aesthetics as reputational cues yet misses the autonomous circulation of metrics (likes, follows and feed prominence) that convert affect into countable currency and decouple meaning from any single object. Affordance perspectives link these abstractions to concrete interface features (prompts, nudges and feeds), bridging symbolic logic and measurable design. Platform-society accounts situate these mechanisms within personalization and prediction, showing how data extraction and algorithmic selection structure visibility and extend Baudrillard's sign focus into political economy. Attention-economy approaches explain why abundance creates strain: scarcity now lies in cognition rather than goods. Our model adds an empirical grammar for these overlaps: it specifies quantified affect (likes/follows) as the operative currency of the “myth of happiness,” and algorithmic recognition as the mechanism that converts visibility into value. Happiness becomes a proxy measured by platform metrics rather than a private state.

The framework also renders exclusion as symbolic poverty: actors with sparse data traces or systematically deprioritized content become effectively invisible despite material abundance. Concretely, it shows how platforms (1) produce distinction beyond Bourdieu's taste, (2) instantiate mechanisms in interface design rather than affordances alone, (3) embed these within data infrastructures more concretely than broad platform-society accounts and (4) explain the ressentiment of abundance beyond standard attention-economy claims. Recasting Baudrillard's “object dominance” as visibility dominance better fits platformed markets: value hinges less on ownership than on how algorithms rank, recommend and stage content. Platforms act as valuation devices; metricized recognition (impressions, likes, follows and watch time) operates as the principal mechanism. Proposition: in platform-mediated domains, algorithmic visibility exerts a stronger direct influence on cultural-ideological change than device engagement or object possession, controlling for socioeconomic status and brand symbolism.

In this view, the “myth of happiness” appears as quantified affect: likes, comments, and follower counts take the place of genuine approval, producing only short-lived feelings of satisfaction while continuously raising expectations. These effects are likely to weaken when platforms hide engagement counters and to intensify in competitive, always-on feeds. At the same time, the “myth of poverty” takes the form of data or visibility poverty. Users with limited or fragmented data traces tend to be ranked lower by algorithms, which results in reduced visibility and fewer opportunities for recognition. From an empirical standpoint, this perspective suggests testable patterns, such as disadvantages for new or data-poor users and the possibility that more diverse social networks may help offset visibility losses.

As conceptualized in Figure 4, a three-factor architecture, PSI, TEB and DMAC, renders a sign-centered theory testable. PSI provides propulsion; TEB and DMAC supply the infrastructural rails through which cultural change unfolds.

This study re-examines Jean Baudrillard's theory of consumer society within digitally mediated environments, concentrating on four dimensions – object dominance, abundance/accumulation, the myth of happiness and the myth of poverty. Twelve operational constructs were developed and empirically evaluated using survey data from international students in Shanghai, yielding both conceptual clarification and methodological advancement. The principal contribution is to demonstrate that Baudrillard's propositions can be translated into tractable measures that capture salient features of platform-era consumption.

Factor-analytic results support a three-factor architecture – (i) PSI, (ii) TEB and (iii) DMAC. This structure indicates that the dynamics identified by Baudrillard persist, but are now mediated by recommendation systems, profile curation and data-driven personalization. The findings suggest that sign-value circulates through algorithmic infrastructures as much as through material possession, thereby reframing status, choice and affect under platform conditions. Although platform affordances, regulatory regimes and local cultural norms likely moderate these relationships, the framework offers a testable and extensible analytic lens for contemporary consumption as digital architectures evolve.

The study refines each of Baudrillard's dimensions for digital settings:

1. Object dominance manifests as algorithmic visibility, elevating digital symbolism and brand perception over material ownership.

2. Abundance/accumulation appears as software-driven obsolescence and decision fatigue, underscoring the cognitive and temporal pressures of overchoice.

3. Myth of happiness is operationalized as quantified affect – likes, shares, followers, signaling a shift from lived satisfaction to metricized recognition.

4. Myth of poverty extends to algorithmic exclusion, whereby inequality is structured through data availability, personalization and visibility hierarchies rather than material scarcity alone.

These refinements affirm the continued analytical utility of Baudrillard's framework and its distinctive explanatory leverage relative to Bourdieu's distinction, signaling theory, and affordance approaches. Accordingly, this paper makes three contributions. First, it advances consumer-society theory by specifying how Baudrillard's four dimensions are re-expressed under platform conditions as algorithmic visibility (object dominance), overchoice and software-driven obsolescence (abundance/accumulation), quantified affect (myth of happiness) and data/visibility poverty (myth of poverty). Second, it provides a portable measurement grammar, 12 survey constructs with EFA/CFA validation and SEM tests, that renders these sign-based mechanisms empirically tractable. Third, by analyzing a transition population of international students from Türkiye, Iran and Pakistan studying in Shanghai, it offers evidence from a setting where prior digital exposure varies and immersion in China's platformized ecosystem makes algorithmic mediation highly salient. Relative to adjacent lenses such as Bourdieu's distinction (taste-based stratification), signaling theory (strategic self-presentation), affordance/platform-society approaches (interface features and data political economy) and attention-economy accounts (cognitive scarcity), our framework foregrounds how sign-value and metricized visibility circulate through algorithmic infrastructures, and links these dynamics to perceived transformation of consumer culture (TCCI).

Given the study's focused sample of international students in Shanghai, the findings are best interpreted as a theory-consistent test of the proposed measurement framework and structural relations in a highly platformized consumption setting. Future research can build on this baseline by replicating the model with larger and more geographically diverse samples (e.g. multiple cities and, where feasible, additional host countries), using multi-wave designs and triangulating self-reports with complementary behavioral or digital-trace indicators (e.g. usage logs or diary methods) to assess the stability of the results across contexts and measurement approaches. Practical implications follow. Marketers and platform designers should address social-comparison dynamics that undermine consumer well-being. Policymakers should pursue transparency and fairness in personalization systems to mitigate algorithmic marginalization. Educators and cultural institutions can leverage these insights to cultivate critical media literacy. The analysis demonstrates that the logic of signs continues to structure everyday life when consumption is inseparable from algorithmic mediation, and that Baudrillard's framework can be empirically operationalized, refined and extended to contemporary digital culture.

The first author would like to express sincere gratitude to Professor Wang Xiaoming for his patient, step-by-step guidance throughout the entire process of writing this article. His insightful comments, careful supervision and continuous support greatly contributed to the development and improvement of this work.