In James G. Webster’s book, the marketplace of attention is a very crowded place, indeed. From blogs to film to television and tweets, consumers have an apparently inexhaustible supply of news, entertainment and information at their fingertips; but while the availability of content seems limitless, the attention of audiences is finite. So, how do media find audiences, and vice versa, in the digital age? This is the question that Webster attempts to sort out in his analysis of media, media users, and the implications for society as a whole in an age of limitless choice. Media need audiences before they can achieve their intended purpose, and to find that audience, they must compete with one another in the marketplace of attention. Never before has the competition for attention in the public sphere been so intense. It’s a zero-sum game as more media choices compete for the attention of audiences that grow increasingly scarce and allusive. The Marketplace of Attention attempts to explain why audiences coalesce around some media offerings and not others. To construct his analysis, Webster tries to incorporate all the factors that shape audience behavior, asserting that the available theories exercised to explain how audiences encounter and interact with media have not kept pace with the “fraying and fragmented world” brought about by digital media. One example is “reciprocal causation”—the social scientist’s version of the “chicken or egg” question. Is a website popular because Google recommends it or does Google recommend it because it’s popular? Webster asserts that today’s real-world relationships between media and audiences defy simple one-way explanations and require moving between “levels of analysis”. To incorporate the various factors that shape audience, Webster looks beyond the dimensions of media users and media themselves, and devotes extended portions to somewhat lesser-studied topics, such as the role that social networks play in influencing public attention and the audience-shaping impact of media measurement. Two features of social networks are particularly useful in understanding their influence on public attention: the presence of opinion leaders and the nature of social ties. Opinion leaders don’t necessarily occupy any official positions, but appear to be wellinformed about their areas of expertise, such as fashion or politics. Their opinions are respected, so they’re in a position to influence others. An opinion leader can be thought of as a “node” in a network of people who have social ties. Social ties can be strong or weak, but profoundly influence how information moves around social networks. Sharing of information on social networks, such as “retweeting” on Twitter or “sharing” on Facebook, can be seen as expressions of solidarity or social bonding, affecting the kind of information that moves across social networks and how that information is perceived. While opinion leaders and social ties are not new (think celebrity endorsements and “water cooler” conversations), the technology of social networks has profoundly broadened and intensified their impact. And, in an age of limitless media choices, people rely upon opinion leaders, social networks and recommendation systems more than ever. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON MEDIA MANAGEMENT 2016, VOL. 18, NOS. 3–4, 181–182

中文翻译：

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注意力市场：观众如何在数字时代形成

在 James G. Webster 的书中，注意力市场确实是一个非常拥挤的地方。从博客到电影再到电视和推文，消费者触手可及的新闻、娱乐和信息显然是取之不尽的；但是，虽然内容的可用性似乎是无限的，但观众的注意力却是有限的。那么，在数字时代，媒体如何找到受众，反之亦然？这是韦伯斯特在他对媒体、媒体用户以及在无限选择时代对整个社会的影响的分析中试图解决的问题。媒体在达到预期目的之前需要受众，而要找到受众，他们必须在注意力市场上相互竞争。公共领域的注意力竞争从未如此激烈。这是一场零和游戏，因为越来越多的媒体选择争夺越来越稀缺和越来越多的观众的注意力。注意力市场试图解释为什么观众会聚集在某些媒体产品而不是其他媒体产品上。为了构建他的分析，韦伯斯特试图整合影响观众行为的所有因素，断言现有的用来解释观众如何与媒体相遇和互动的理论并没有跟上数字媒体带来的“磨损和碎片化的世界”。一个例子是“相互因果关系”——社会科学家版本的“先有鸡还是先有蛋”的问题。一个网站受欢迎是因为谷歌推荐它还是谷歌推荐它是因为它很受欢迎？韦伯斯特断言，当今媒体与受众之间的现实世界关系无法简单地单向解释，需要在“分析层次”之间移动。为了结合塑造受众的各种因素，韦伯斯特超越了媒体用户和媒体本身的维度，将扩展部分投入到研究较少的主题上，例如社交网络在影响公众注意力和受众塑造影响方面的作用媒体测量。社交网络的两个特征对于理解它们对公众注意力的影响特别有用：意见领袖的存在和社会联系的性质。意见领袖不一定担任任何官方职位，但似乎对他们的专业领域非常了解，例如时尚或政治。他们的意见受到尊重，因此他们能够影响他人。意见领袖可以被认为是具有社会联系的人网络中的“节点”。社会联系可以强也可以弱，但会深刻影响信息在社交网络中的移动方式。在社交网络上共享信息，例如在 Twitter 上“转发”或在 Facebook 上“共享”，可以被视为团结或社会纽带的表达，影响在社交网络中传播的信息类型以及该信息的感知方式。虽然意见领袖和社会关系并不新鲜（想想名人代言和“饮水机”对话），但社交网络技术已经深刻地扩大和加强了它们的影响。和，在媒体选择无限的时代，人们比以往任何时候都更加依赖意见领袖、社交网络和推荐系统。国际媒体管理杂志 2016 年，第一卷。18，没有。3–4, 181–182