The attention economy, closely tied to advertising, journalism, entertainment and education industries, provides a new perspective to explain economic phenomena in an information era.

 

After a positive review online went viral recently, a BBQ shop in the Pudong District of Shanghai became so popular that diners were willing to wait for over two hours. What exactly drew people’s attention? What economic model can explain this demand?

 

New business model
American university expertise Michael Goldhaber’s thesis that attention is the hard currency of cyberspace provides a new perspective to explain economic phenomena in an information era. The concept also encompasses issues concerning the buyer’s market and virtual economies.

“Overproduction results in shifts in competition objectives. The producer-centered marketing model was converted to be consumer based. Attention from consumers is gaining importance,” said Jiang Qiping, secretary-general of the Center for Informatization Study at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He argued that a change from under-productivity to overcapacity has led to a situation in which it is necessary to manage attention rather than manage commodities.
 

Zhang Lei, head of the Institute of Information and Communication at Zhejiang University of Technology said: “Attention is the measurable value of information products. It resembles real currency in terms of scarcity, fluidity and extensive availability. New media thus have become ‘banks’ allocating the currency of attention.” The age of new media has witnessed the emergence of a new business model which utilizes both attention as currency and a traditional currency system. Originating from the media economy, this new business model has been consistently extended to the material world in the Internet era.
 

Discarding traditions
Closely tied to advertising, journalism, entertainment and education industries, the attention economy impacts the economy in many ways.
 

Practice has proven that there is no gain when producers unscrupulously catch users’ attention,” Jiang said. He argued that the process is neither unidirectional from producers to users nor targeted at simply grabbing attention. It would be pointless to engage in gaining users’ attention without caring about their motives.
 

“From the product economy and service economy to experience economy, the change in user’s decisions is the background against which attention is set,” Jiang said. He contended that the attention economy emphasizes consumers’ interests. It discards the traditional model under which consumers buy what producers produce and puts forth a new model in which the producers produce what consumers need. The marketing paradigm should shift away from being consumer based and toward one focused on the consumers’ attention.

 

Quantifying attention
“Attention” is a psychological concept. The attention economy focuses on ways to quantify attention. As a major producer of attention products, mass media possesses a set of feasible metrics that can be used to assess the quality and quantity of attention products, through such metrics as audience ratings and click rates.

“Among the various measurement principles and operations regarding media attention, every index incorporates time without exception. Traditional methods for measuring time budgeting include diaries, interviews, observations, and combinations of diaries and interviews,” said Yu Guoming, executive director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Normal University.
 

Considering that interviews with subjects can be problematic due to interviewee’s psychological or cognitive limits, Yu suggested assessing media contact time through a more comprehensive system.
In addition, research models on the attention economy have not been unified. Some scholars believe that the currency, price, investment income and supply-demand relationship of the attention economy differ from those of the traditional economy. New research methods and systems are needed. However, others contended that research frameworks from the traditional economy are enough.
 

Zhang suggested promoting research from multiple perspectives. Nowadays there are massive related studies involving the attention economy in such fields as media, advertising, public relations, library science and information, marketing, management, sports and tourism. But in-depth research is still rare.

 

 

 

Ming Haiying is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.