Abstract
This article outlines two modes of publicity, a publicity of promotion and a publicity of openness, and then considers their implications for traditional broadcast versus online communications. Although the structure of the internet makes it particularly good at developing a publicity of openness, the economics, regulatory structure and technology of the traditional broadcast media make them far better at developing promotional publicity. I trace a series of examples that demonstrate this inequality and discuss the implications of this disparity for the economics of attention. Ultimately, I argue, discussions of the democratic possibilities of the internet must take account of the relative lack of promotional publicity online.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
