The Marketplace of Attention: How Audiences Take Shape in A Digital Age

Abstract

In James G. Webster’s book, the marketplace of attention is a very crowded place, indeed. From blogs to film to television and tweets, consumers have an apparently inexhaustible supply of news, entertainment and information at their fingertips; but while the availability of content seems limitless, the attention of audiences is finite. So, how do media find audiences, and vice versa, in the digital age? This is the question that Webster attempts to sort out in his analysis of media, media users, and the implications for society as a whole in an age of limitless choice. Media need audiences before they can achieve their intended purpose, and to find that audience, they must compete with one another in the marketplace of attention. Never before has the competition for attention in the public sphere been so intense. It’s a zero-sum game as more media choices compete for the attention of audiences that grow increasingly scarce and allusive. The Marketplace of Attention attempts to explain why audiences coalesce around some media offerings and not others. To construct his analysis, Webster tries to incorporate all the factors that shape audience behavior, asserting that the available theories exercised to explain how audiences encounter and interact with media have not kept pace with the “fraying and fragmented world” brought about by digital media. One example is “reciprocal causation”—the social scientist’s version of the “chicken or egg” question. Is a website popular because Google recommends it or does Google recommend it because it’s popular? Webster asserts that today’s real-world relationships between media and audiences defy simple one-way explanations and require moving between “levels of analysis”. To incorporate the various factors that shape audience, Webster looks beyond the dimensions of media users and media themselves, and devotes extended portions to somewhat lesser-studied topics, such as the role that social networks play in influencing public attention and the audience-shaping impact of media measurement. Two features of social networks are particularly useful in understanding their influence on public attention: the presence of opinion leaders and the nature of social ties. Opinion leaders don’t necessarily occupy any official positions, but appear to be wellinformed about their areas of expertise, such as fashion or politics. Their opinions are respected, so they’re in a position to influence others. An opinion leader can be thought of as a “node” in a network of people who have social ties. Social ties can be strong or weak, but profoundly influence how information moves around social networks. Sharing of information on social networks, such as “retweeting” on Twitter or “sharing” on Facebook, can be seen as expressions of solidarity or social bonding, affecting the kind of information that moves across social networks and how that information is perceived. While opinion leaders and social ties are not new (think celebrity endorsements and “water cooler” conversations), the technology of social networks has profoundly broadened and intensified their impact. And, in an age of limitless media choices, people rely upon opinion leaders, social networks and recommendation systems more than ever. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON MEDIA MANAGEMENT 2016, VOL. 18, NOS. 3–4, 181–182