Taylor’s “attention economy” – Post #2
The cultural landscape Taylor describes, is one chocked full of unseen dangers to the online populace. The idea of an “attention economy”, according to her definition, is one based on the commodification of people. By the employ of “reputation silos”, the use of our personal and professional online habits being monitored and used, by which people are categorized, classified and then, subsequently judged in way people and companies do not have legal rights to do in the real world, are then used and applied in ways unintended and that may lead to new and various forms of discrimination (ethnic, socio-economic, gender). This unfair, unwanted, unwelcomed and highly invasive for of information gathering process exposes people to a form of online voyeurism that leaves no amount of your privacy intact or unexposed. Then, after being so thoroughly violated and stripped bare, we are then sold on to the next buyer, to be forcibly marketed to. The gathered information is used to determine, or rather to shape, what our wants, needs and likes are or should be. Thus, dangling the newer, improved (in ways that really don’t matter much other than it’s new) versions of all of our already in-hand devices/goods/products, that just don’t quite measure up anymore, and adding to our ever increasing pile of “e-waste”. This is made possible by those unknown digital companies that monitor and collect all this information, that it then sells to marketers, who use this information – in conjunction with “native advertising” cleverly disguised as editorial content on popular websites, designed to continue to sell us while pretending to be objective or give the real scope on any products/goods/services being offered. The staffer driven marketing ploys is yet another way, the attention landscape Taylor refers to is being shaped – and, all of it used against the commodified public that 2.0 users are becoming.
