First of all, thanks to Lancia for reminding me of this term. The more I explore it, the more interesting it becomes! That is why I am doing my trackback assignment on the economics of attention.
The unfortunate thing about this term is that it is new to me, so I feel like I need a better idea of the concept and arguments going on around it before I write. Not like I don't have enough reading to do! For this reason, I don't have a real sense of how the biggest chunk of my trackback will go, but I will be reading a lot this weekend.
I know that I want to create a Keynote presentation that I will then narrate over (instead of a traditional essay). I also know that I want to apply the concept of economics of attention to social media. In order to tie this (at least loosely) to my class presentation (rhetoric of panic), I believe I will argue for a new interpretation of this term. It is my understanding that the essence of the economics of attention is that people need to produce relevant content that will prompt some sort of purchase. Basically, producers of content must provide something that the viewer thinks is worth her time. Again, with a lack of thorough reading, my understanding is that this is generally applied to literally selling products, generating clicks on sponsored sites, or "liking" something; however, I want to argue that this concept can also be applied to social media when the response isn't a purchase, but sharing of information - either for positive, altruistic purposes like disaster response or for hedonistic or destructive desires, like inducing panic.
To do this, I need to define economics of attention and show how it can be applied to social media in this way. The two primary connections I will trace are appealing to a specific audience and the development of ethos. However, these will include discussion of style, Toulmin's data/warrant/claim with the expectation of building ethos, Perelman's specific versus universal audience (that also reflects Plato), the need for phronesis (connecting back to Aristotle) and kairos.
Basically, I'm hoping to understand and communicate how some social media posts go viral by creating effective rhetoric that takes advantage of the economics of attention.
When you submit your final presentation, please export the Keynote as a mov so that it plays for people without Keynote (most of our class I suspect). Thanks. What is the production of content, exactly? Has that changed over time? And it's not just the production of content, of course, but fluff over stuff (the medium or distribution of content). I like the idea of thinking about practical wisdom. If we produce content it is meaningless and worthless unless it can be delivered and received. There is practical wisdom there. The medium is part of the message, critical in conveying the message. User experience, thinking about conveying knowledge, etc. Yes, tracking this back would be most illuminating. Perhaps look at books on social knowledge making and see what they say, too. Check MIT Press books, especially.
ReplyDelete