
Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.
The Economics of Attention
Richard A. Lanham
€ 31.60
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for The Economics of Attention
Paperback. If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information. This title traces our move from an economy of things and objects to an economy of attention. Num Pages: 326 pages, 27 halftones, 2 line drawings. BIC Classification: KC; UBJ. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 228 x 154 x 23. Weight in Grams: 532.
If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information. With all the verve and erudition that have established his earlier books as classics, Richard A. Lanham here traces our epochal move from an economy of things and objects to an economy of attention. According to Lanham, the central commodity in our new age of information is not stuff but style, for style is what competes for our attention amidst the din and deluge of new media. In such a world, intellectual property will become more central to the economy than real property, while the arts and letters will grow to be more crucial than engineering, the physical sciences, and indeed economics as conventionally practiced. The new attention economy, therefore, will anoint a new set of moguls in the business world - not the CEOs or fund managers of yesteryear, but new masters of attention with a grounding in the humanities and liberal arts.
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2007
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press United States
Number of pages
326
Condition
New
Number of Pages
326
Place of Publication
, United States
ISBN
9780226468679
SKU
V9780226468679
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-50
About Richard A. Lanham
Richard A. Lanham is professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and president of Rhetorica, Inc., a consulting and editorial services company. He is the author of numerous books, including The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Reviews for The Economics of Attention
"I personally find this head-smackingly insightful. Of course! Money may make the world go 'round, but it's attention that we increasingly sell, hoard, compete for, and fuss over....The real news is that just about all of us - whether we participate in the market as producers or consumers - live increasingly in the attention economy as well." - Andrew Cassel, Philadelphia Inquirer "Lanham's points are strong and well-researched....If style is going to increasingly operate as the decision-making arbiter, Lanham should be commended on his: clear, jargon-free, and forward-thinking." - Publishers Weekly "It's refreshing to read a deeply literary mind who embraces the information age, and wants to focus on its civilizing possibilities rather than flee from the screens in horror." - Pat Kane, Independent (UK)"