In this episode we talk about the business model of social media platforms and the commodity that makes them work: attention.  Your audience’s attention, but also your attention as a content creator. 

great links in this episode:

The Guardian Article that is also an excerpt from Johann Hari’s new Book is well worth a read and a good day of mulling over afterward:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/02/attention-span-focus-screens-apps-smartphones-social-media?fbclid=IwAR2Lx8rmJl8yEXmb7ubF47B4V2bCYPUAngIXH7LkuSszrEfU-07J-lZpBRg

And his new book is titled: “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention” It’s available everywhere you buy books January 25th. 

If you’re interested in more scholarship on audience work or audience attention as a commodity, I can recommend these academic papers:

Dallas Walker Smythe - Dependency Road: Communications, capitalism, consciousness, and Canada. “On the audience commodity and its work” Ablex publishing corporation . New Jersey 1981. 

Fisher, Eran. (2012). How Less Alienation Creates More Exploitation? Audience Labour on Social Network Sites. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. 10. 10.31269/vol10iss2pp171-183. 

Garnam, Nicholas.  Emancipation, the Media, and Modernity.  Arguments about the Media and Social Theory. Oxford University Press. 2000.

The Video mentioned in our Midroll Message, “How to Give Your Brain the Stimulation It Needs” by How to ADHD. 

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