Advertising industrialized attention by converting it into a resellable commodity
Evidence
For advertising was the conversion engine that, with astonishing efficiency, turned the cash crop of attention into an industrial commodity. As such, attention could be not only used but resold, and this is where our story begins. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the book’s core thesis: attention as a resellable industrial commodity.
- SEED: Could anchor an essay on the economics of attention as commodity — how ‘conversion engine’ metaphors shaped our understanding of media markets.
- XREF: connects to: Platform profits come from harvesting user attention and selling it back to advertisers — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 43; Mass media function as banks for the attention economy — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 159; Celebrity functions as stored attention convertible into commercial influence — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 150 (+27 more)
Broader Connections
- Large agencies industrialized advertising into an endless machine for attention capture
#corroborates(0.90) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 183 - Ad-supported media sell audiences’ attention, not content, to advertisers
#exemplifies(0.85) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 219 - Advertising converted attention into revenue by selling consumers a receding ideal
#expands(0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 225 - Early advertising converted human attention into cash by creating demand
#corroborates(0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 76 - Mass-scale attention harvesting began with advertising in the 1890s-1920s
#expands(0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24