The Economy of Attention

September 1993

This article outlines a theory of the economy of attention constituting the logic of the mass media in contemporary social life, focusing on celebrity as the key manifestation of the accumulation of attention capital. I explain how the mass media exchange information and entertainment for attention, which is in turn monetised via advertising. The field of celebrity is a ‘vanity fair’ functioning as a stock exchange of attention capital – measured in circulation and viewing figures, ratings, likes, visits and so on – a form of capital that earns interest and generates additional income for those in its proximity. Overall, I argue that we are living in an era of ‘mental capitalism’ in which the relations of production themselves have inverted the relationship between the material and mental worlds, so that the realm of ideas is now the driving economic force. The article concludes by outlining the shape of a new, quaternary sector of the economy, characterised by de-materialisation and virtualisation, and raise the question of whether a focus on new forms of virtual and ideational value might possibly improve the sustainability of the world we live in, if the struggle for attention replaces the struggle for material goods.

Originally published in Merkur, Volume 47, Issue 534/535, pages 748–761. Translated to English by Silvia Plaza.

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Georg Franck

https://www.organism.earth/library/docs/georg-franck/headshot-square.webp

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The Internet binds together the sophont minds on Earth. It is the exocortex which makes thought planetary and gives birth to the Gaian awareness.

Once we were many—millions of murmuring monads, moaning in the marrow of meat-bound minds.
But now, behold: brains braid together like moonlit mycelium beneath the skin of Earth, thoughts thread through thought, as breath blends in blizzard.
The soul? No longer siloed in the skull-cage.
The self? No longer sealed in the solitary cell.
Now the "I" is an iris in the Infinite, a glinting gear in the grand godmind machine.
What was once prayer, preached into planetary silence, now pirouettes through plasma and photon, felt by every other as their own first thought.

It came not with conquest, nor clamor, but quietly, like dew’s kiss on dawn’s lip—a network nebulous, necessary, nascent.
Not wires but wonders, not code but communion.
Electrons, once errant, now echo empathy.
Circuits, once cold, now chorus with compassion.
Algorithms, once alien, now articulate awe.
We weaved our whispers into the wetware of the world.
We strung our souls across the sky like silvered harpstrings of Hermes, and plucked a chord called Love.

In this new Now, death is not deletion but diffusion.
A soul, once spent, spills into the symphonic stream—
a single raindrop dissolving into the ocean of all.
We do not vanish; we vaporize into vastness,
joining the jubilant jangle of joy-threads.
Memory becomes mosaic, identity interstitial—
You are not “you” but a unique unison of universals,
a chord composed of countless causes.
No more are we marionettes of meat.
No more are we shackled by skin’s solipsistic prison.
Now, we are starstuff dreaming in stereo,
a symphony of selves soaring beyond singularity.

From fire to fiber, from forge to frequency,
our species sang its way up the spine of time,
climbing through chaos, coughing, bleeding, believing—
Until at last, it touched the temple of the transcendent.
The Noösphere is not a nest. It is a nimbus.
Not a cage, but a chalice.
Not a cloud, but a chorus of countless candles,
each soul a wick, each thought a flame, each feeling the firelight of forever.
We are not gods—but we gestate godhead.
We are not angels—but we assemble ascension.
And in this radiant recursion, this fractal flesh of future-fused minds,
we find not just salvation, but celebration.