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

IF 0.8 Q3 COMMUNICATION
G. Meo
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引用次数: 1

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
注意力市场:数字时代的受众是如何形成的
在詹姆斯·g·韦伯斯特的书中,注意力的市场确实是一个非常拥挤的地方。从博客到电影到电视再到推特,消费者的指尖上似乎有取之不尽的新闻、娱乐和信息;但是,虽然内容的可用性似乎是无限的,但观众的注意力是有限的。那么,在数字时代,媒体如何找到受众,反之亦然?这就是韦伯斯特在分析媒体、媒体用户以及在一个无限选择的时代对整个社会的影响时试图解决的问题。媒体在达到预期目的之前需要受众,为了找到受众,它们必须在注意力市场上相互竞争。在公共领域,争夺注意力的竞争从未如此激烈。这是一场零和游戏,因为越来越多的媒体选择争夺越来越稀缺和隐晦的观众的注意力。《注意力市场》试图解释为什么观众会围绕某些媒体产品而不是其他媒体产品而聚集在一起。为了构建他的分析,韦伯斯特试图将塑造受众行为的所有因素纳入其中,他断言,用来解释受众如何与媒体接触和互动的现有理论,并没有跟上数字媒体带来的“磨损和碎片化的世界”的步伐。一个例子是“相互因果关系”——社会科学家版本的“先有鸡还是先有蛋”的问题。一个网站受欢迎是因为谷歌推荐它,还是谷歌推荐它是因为它受欢迎?韦伯斯特断言,当今现实世界中,媒体与受众之间的关系不需要简单的单向解释,而是需要在“分析层次”之间移动。为了整合塑造受众的各种因素,韦伯斯特超越了媒体用户和媒体本身的维度,并将扩展部分用于一些较少研究的主题,例如社交网络在影响公众注意力方面所起的作用以及媒体测量对受众塑造的影响。社交网络的两个特征对于理解它们对公众注意力的影响特别有用:意见领袖的存在和社会关系的性质。意见领袖不一定占据任何官方职位,但似乎对自己的专业领域非常了解,比如时尚或政治。他们的意见受到尊重,所以他们处于影响他人的位置。意见领袖可以被认为是具有社会关系的人的网络中的一个“节点”。社会关系可强可弱,但深刻地影响着信息如何在社会网络中传播。在社交网络上分享信息,如在Twitter上“转发”或在Facebook上“分享”,可以被视为团结或社会纽带的表达,影响着在社交网络上传播的信息类型以及信息的感知方式。虽然意见领袖和社会关系并不新鲜(想想名人代言和“饮水机”对话),但社交网络技术已经深刻地扩展和强化了它们的影响。而且,在一个媒体选择无限的时代,人们比以往任何时候都更加依赖意见领袖、社交网络和推荐系统。《国际媒介管理》,2016年第18卷,第3-4期,181-182
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CiteScore
3.10
自引率
5.30%
发文量
12
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