What seems like personal perception is routed through collective circulating images and discourses.
Evidence
Living in France and necessarily participating in the islamophobic enthralments currently resonating in the media sphere, I cannot fail to notice that a woman is wearing a veil – similarly, living in America and submerged in the long-term inertia of racist stereotypes haunting that country, it is difficult for a white person from a wealthy neighbourhood not to nurture feelings of fear and threat when passing a group of young African-Americans in the street late at night. The attention I pay to what surrounds me and to what I encounter is constrained, in the first instance at least, to follow paths opened by the images and discourses circulating among and within us. From which comes a PRINCIPLE OF TRANSINDIVIDUAL ATTENTIONALITY: through ‘me’, it is always ‘our’ collective thinking and feeling [νους /nous] who is paying attention. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 101
Categorization
- DEFINE: Formalizes the ‘principle of transindividual attentionality’ — the claim that collective thinking happens through individual perceivers.
- XREF: Connects to Frankfurt School attention theory and to the reader’s standing interest in how media shape perception of Islamophobia and race. — connects to: People act largely on mediated images rather than direct experience; Shared attention builds a collective rather than merely private reality — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 121; Belief in institutions now depends on circulating images of them — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 136 (+3 more)
- SEED: This principle could seed an essay on how media enthralments pre-structure ‘spontaneous’ fear responses to racialized bodies.
Broader Connections
- People act largely on mediated images rather than direct experience
#corroborates(0.90) - People act on media-formed images of reality more than on direct experience.
#corroborates(0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 714 - Shared attention builds a collective rather than merely private reality
#expands(0.85) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 121 - Belief in institutions now depends on circulating images of them
#exemplifies(0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 136 - Discourse produces knowledge that shapes perceptions and enacts power
#corroborates(0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 687 - Attention patterns constitute reality and are contagious between people.
#corroborates(0.75) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 43