Paying for it in the Attention Economy
In early 1997 a UC Berkley based Theoretical Physicist wrote article in Wired Magazine, where he called “attention” the currency of the new economy. He foreshadowed its potential consequences: division, disparity of power, deepening inequality, disproportionate advantages for the most attention hungry and shameless, and the erosion of privacy. So accurate were his predictions that the New York Times called him – Michael Goldhaber — the “Cassandra” of the internet age, after the mythical Trojan figure cursed to utter eerily accurate prophecies.
Join us as we talk with Michael about the attention economy and its impact on the rise of everything from influencers to QAnon and its consequences on belief, facts and democracy.
Hosted by: Alexa Raad and Leslie Daigle.
Related material:
- New York Times, “I Talked to the Cassandra of the Internet Age”, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/opinion/michael-goldhaber-internet.html
- First Monday, “Attention Economy and the net”, https://firstmonday.org/article/view/519/440
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