“Not this one”: social movements, the attention economy, and microcelebrity networked activism
Abstract
The emergent new media ecology which integrates participatory media into the structure of global information flows has fundamentally affected the means of production and distribution of attention, a key resource for social movements. In social movement scholarship, attention itself is rarely examined directly; rather, it is encountered in the study of means of delivering attention such as mass media or celebrities. This conflation of the resource, attention, and the pathways to acquire it, such as mass media, was less of an analytic problem when mass media enjoyed a near monopoly on public attention. However, the paths connecting movement actors and public attention are increasingly multiplex and include civic and social media. In this article, I examine the concept of attention as a distinct analytic category, reevaluate social movement scholarship in light of weakening of the monopoly on public attention, and introduce and examine a novel dynamic brought about by emergent attention economy: networked microcelebrity activism. I examine this novel dynamic through case studies and raise questions for future exploration.
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The addictive nature of the online ecosystem makes it difficult to step out of platforms predicated on an attention-grabbing economy designed to keep users on them longer.
“the addictive nature of this online ecosystem makes it difficult to step out of platforms that are predicated on an attention-grabbing economy that is designed to keep users to stand on them for longer”
From Copping the blame: the role of YouTube videos in the criminalisation of UK drill music (2022) · cites this paper as Tufekci, 2013
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Copping the blame: the role of YouTube videos in the criminalisation of UK drill music
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- Authors
- Tufekci, Z.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Venue
- American Behavioral Scientist
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2013-03-26
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 848-870
- ISSN
- 0002-7642 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3381
- OpenAlex
- W2084979261
- Cited by
- 323
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 40 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 41.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Behavioral Scientist (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Studies and Communication
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Movements and Cultural Identity
- Keywords
- attention, social movements, attention economy, participatory media, new media ecology, information flow, social media, civic media
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