Author: Enrico Campo
This article examines the epistemological and ethical implications of narratives surrounding the attention economy, highlighting the convergences between critical perspectives and the enthusiastic rhetoric of public discourse. In particular, it shows how both positions – despite their opposing intentions – share the same definition of attention. Conventional critical approaches thus implicitly accept the premises of the very model they aim to critique. In the first part, the article traces the evolution of the concept of the “attention economy” and identifies the epistemological and ethical assumptions common to various approaches. It then explores the cultural and technological conditions that have contributed to the rise of this category as a dominant interpretative framework. The article argues that, far from representing a rupture with previous or contemporary concepts such as the “information society,” the idea of the attention economy actually radicalizes and extends the defining logics of postmodern social narratives.
Keywords: Attention economy, attention as a resource, postmodernism, measurement, logic of care, digital ideology, attention as practice
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ENRICO CAMPO è ricercatore in Sociologia presso il Dipartimento di Filosofia “Piero Martinetti”, dove insegna Teorie Sociologiche. È autore di La testa altrove. L’attenzione e la sua crisi nella società digitale (Donzelli 2020, Routledge 2022) e ha curato The Politics of Curiosity: Alternatives to the Attention Economy (con Yves Citton, Routledge 2024) e Exploring the Crisis: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Investigations (con Andrea Borghini, Pisa University Press, 2015).
Email: enrico.campo@unimi.it