Attention Economy

The attention economy refers to the idea that in our information-rich society, people’s attention has become a scarce and valuable resource. This has created an environment in which companies and organizations must compete for people’s attention in order to achieve their goals, such as selling products or spreading ideas.

Companies and organizations compete for people’s attention by creating content and experiences that are designed to capture and hold people’s interest. This often involves tracking people’s behavior and preferences, analyzing this data to better understand what people like and dislike, and using this information to create more targeted and personalized content.

Overall, the attention economy, surveillance capitalism, big data, and datafication are all interconnected concepts that reflect the growing importance of personal data in our information-rich society. These concepts raise important questions about privacy, consent, and the ethical use of personal data, and underscore the need for greater public awareness and media education around these issues.

Media Education 3.0 can help people to develop a critical understanding of the ways in which media companies and organizations use personal data to capture and hold people’s attention. This can help individuals become more aware of the ways in which their attention is being manipulated, and can help them make more informed decisions about where to direct their attention.

⬇️ REFERENCES:

• Williams, J. (2018). Stand out of our light: Freedom and resistance in the attention economy. Cambridge University Press.
• Hendricks, V. F., & Vestergaard, M. (2019). The attention economy. In Reality lost (pp. 1-17). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00813-0_1
• Zuboff, Shoshana. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs.