Scientific communities are prestige struggles over attention

Evidence

Franck sees scientific communities as ‘vanity fairs”, structured struggles for attention capital in the form of citations, recognition, attendance at lectures, viewings of videos, and incorporation of one person’s intellectual production into that of others. — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 13

Categorization

• SHARE: A perfectly framed counterintuitive reframing of academic institutions — worth sending to an academic friend tired of citation metrics.
• CANDY: A tweetable line: science as a vanity fair for attention capital.
• XREF: connects to: Attention functions as currency in prestige-differentiated social groups — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 13; Science advances through collaborative effort, not isolated geniuses — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 747; Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 141 (+1 more)

Related

• Science advances through collaborative effort, not isolated geniuses (similarity 0.79)
• Attention functions as currency in prestige-differentiated social groups (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Attention functions as currency in prestige-differentiated social groups #expands (0.85) — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 13
• Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 141
• Science advances through collaborative effort, not isolated geniuses #contradicts (0.72) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 747