%0 Journal Article
%T Georg Franck¡¯s ¡®The Economy of Attention¡¯: Mental capitalism and the struggle for attention
%A Robert van Krieken
%J Journal of Sociology
%@ 1741-2978
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1440783318812111
%X 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
%K academic labour
%K branding
%K celebrity
%K economy of attention
%K mental capitalism
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1440783318812111