Front cover image for The economics of attention : style and substance in the age of information

The economics of attention : style and substance in the age of information

"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 amid 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. For Lanham, the arts and letters are the disciplines that study how human attention is allocated and how cultural capital is created and traded. In an economy of attention, style and substance change places. 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."--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2006
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006