Georg Franck’s ‘The Economy of Attention’: Mental capitalism and the struggle for attention

Abstract

This article places Georg Franck’s ‘The Economy of Attention’ in the context of the broader discussions of ‘the attention economy’, and the increasing significance of attention in a knowledge society characterised by ever-increasing flows of information and data. I highlight the four core elements of Franck’s theory of the economy of attention: first, the importance of the fundamental human desire for attention; second, his emphasis on the parallels between attention and money, making it more literally a form of capital than is usually assumed; third, the self-reproducing character of attention capital, earning interest just as money does; fourth, the connections between the economy of attention and the expanding impetus towards everyone becoming a celebrity and a ‘brand’ within what he calls ‘mental capitalism’, with the field of academic labour a key example.