Attention management predates modernity and originates in classical rhetoric.

Evidence

The management of human attention has been a central feature of human society throughout history. In Ancient Greece and Rome, for example, the discipline of rhetoric trained orators in the devices and techniques need to secure and hold the attention of their audiences. The contemporary versions of those techniques include those of marketing, public relations and advertising, and extend to the promotion of any object, event, or person seeking a wide audience (Lanham 2006). — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 5

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s essay on complaints about immodesty going way back — both show moral/social phenomena now seen as modern actually have deep ancient roots. — connects to: Attention scarcity plagued writers and scholars centuries before digital media — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 53; Rhetoric and style have served as attention-capture disciplines for millennia; The attention industry did not exist a century ago — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 14 (+4 more)
• SEED: Article angle: attention manipulation is not a Silicon Valley invention but a continuous thread from Greek rhetoric to PR — the techniques changed, the project didn’t.

Related

• Rhetoric and style have served as attention-capture disciplines for millennia (similarity 0.93)
• Attention has long been treated as valuable and manipulable, not only digitally. (similarity 0.86)
• The attention industry did not exist a century ago (similarity 0.86)
• The attention economy predates digital technology by 150 years (similarity 0.86)
• Attention scarcity plagued writers and scholars centuries before digital media (similarity 0.82)
• Human attention went largely untapped commercially before the nineteenth century. (similarity 0.81)
• Attention functions as a political economy embedded in specific temporal contexts (similarity 0.81)
• Attention merchants now shape the course of human lives and futures (similarity 0.80)
• Attention has emerged as a site of political, economic, and moral struggle (similarity 0.80)
• Attention must be managed at individual, managerial, and organizational levels to achieve goals (similarity 0.79)
• Attention is socially and materially mediated, not just a scarce mental resource (similarity 0.79)
• Attention now functions like money as a common metric for cultural value. (similarity 0.79)
• Two new inventions in the late 1930s would exponentially expand the supply of attention (similarity 0.78)
• Attention is a socially produced and politically governed resource, not merely a scarce one. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Attention has long been treated as valuable and manipulable, not only digitally. #corroborates (0.90) — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 43
• The attention industry did not exist a century ago #corroborates (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 14
• The attention economy predates digital technology by 150 years #corroborates (0.85) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 62
• Human attention went largely untapped commercially before the nineteenth century. #corroborates (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 80
• Attention must be managed at individual, managerial, and organizational levels to achieve goals #expands (0.75) — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy, 15