My belief is that Putin got extremely lucky with regards to the rise of the attention economy - primarily social media, and that without Twitter and Facebook, Putin's campaigns to unmake the West almost certainly would have failed. In this way, it is not a case, as Foer argues, "that the Russian leader has bent the West to his vision." Rather, the West - and the world - bent itself to the vision of Silicon Valley and the attention economy, and Putin's aims here happened to coincide nicely with this ouroboros-esque reimagining of Western society. Putin was certainly savvy enough to recognize this phenomenon and took steps to capitalize on it, but he himself was not the means by which the world was bent.
Interesting point. It have to do with Putin leveraging Russian hackers (who were already acting for profit) for his political aims. I doubt Putin himself is all that tech savvy - although with his KGB background, I could be wrong about that.
How does one differentiate the construct of an "attention economy" from that of a mass substrate for propaganda? After all, the net results are the same: persuasion round a particular point of view, and the most expeditious way of achieving that.
"If there is a political scientist who predicted how Musk could effectively leverage his position to eliminate US-AID despite the legal and political barriers, I don’t know who she or he is. It certainly wasn’t me. As far as I can see, political scientists don’t even know how to think about these questions -"
But perhaps historians do. It isn't a unique time in history. Authoritarians have done the same throughout history - effectively throwing over the chess table and doing what they wanted with enablers. Henry VII on divorce despite religious objections, Hitler overturning law to be what he says and getting judges to accede, are just 2 that come to mind.
As regards attention and information, hasn't this been a nearly perennial problem? Each new technology, printing, radio, television, and social media are decried as creating too much information and swaying opinions. Is Musk's control of X/Twitter really that different from Hearst's control of a large newspaper chain? Murdoch did the same with tabloid newspapers, tv, and radio.
As to human attention. Computers do the drudge work. My days in the 1970s in university library stacks hunting references are thankfully long past. We see today how reducing information overload results in people just reading headlines, never mind the lede or the story. In the 1980's Richard Wurman wrote "Information Anxiety" and how to deal with it. In the 1990s there were arguments about editing vs being exposed to the hose pipe of information flow. Now we have a near-infinite amount of content, including this blog. The trick, if there is any such thing, is to curate what you imbibe, because the sea of content is like Borges' Library of Babel. The good and useful content are needles in straw silos. One must not go down attention rabbit holes.
But as I said, history is a guide to the answers - what happened in similar times, what worked and what didn't? Reading Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism" it is not clear why some countries fell into fascism, while others did not. More detail of cultural attitudes and conditions might better expose the reasons, although economic conditions seem primary to me. The information flow itself seems of lesser importance, but as we see in the contemporary USA, well-designed propaganda is a tool that can be exploited. As for why Musk can do as he likes, he is enabled by what is still called the Republican Party where [evidence of] fear prevents individuals from stopping this nonsense. Fear of the state and of the population are important motivators of self-preservation., each operating at different times, and each using that power to upend the various means to control a large population. in 50 tears historians will be writing about and explaining this period. Will sociologists have anything useful to contribute?
A lot of that feeling is induced intentionally. You might call it weaponizing attention.
Another big problem with information overload is quantity over quality. There's just so much garbage being hurled our way. It opens the door for propagandists to exploit and capture attention. Murdoch properties, especially Faux Newspeak is a prime example of this phenomenon.
It opens rabbit holes for those captured to go down. It might begin with Faux, then move to Newsmax, then Breitbart, and from there 4chan, 8chan and Qanon are only a click away.
"...the new economy enables needy grotesques like Trump and Musk to pursue their endless need for attention."
Trump and Musks need for attention is a distraction from their need to steal wealth from the bototm and funnel it to themselves. It's not that they don't crave attention, of course they do, but they weaponize it for a more nefarious purpose - which is their primary goal.
"It seems at the least extremely likely that changes in the technology and bandwidth of information affect the issue space, and arguments over it. But how?"
These are very interesting questions. I don't think it's realistic to examine how technology and information bandwidth affect the issue space separately from the political atmosphere that has existed since long before the web grew into the monster it is today.
To be sure, in general, the information highway (and in particular the right wing extremist segment) has had a significant impact. But it was merely amplifying "the message" that's been promoted since the McCarthy era. Before that there was right wing radio (especially Rush Limbaugh and Bob Grant), and also print (Buchanan, Safire, Coulter, Malkin et al). The list goes on for miles.
"How might the attention economy remake the underlying structures of democracy?"
An equally interesting question. I have no doubt the web has profoundly changed the underlying structures of propaganda delivery. To what extent that impacts the underlying structures of democracy itself depends on who's in power. Who's in power is, of course, impacted by the information overload/propagandizing that's been exacerbated by technology, especially the web. It's a bit of a vicious circle, isn't it? Or what we techies call "infinite recursion".
Musk represents a previously unknown quantity. His sudden ascent to power was unpredictable. Historians will be studying and writing about Musk's rise to power for generations to come. One thing is clear, he both bribed (giant campaign donations) and stroked Trumps ego. A notable point about Trump is that he's both a con artist, and an easy mark. Con artistry is a characteristic both Trump and Musk share.
"...understanding the relationship between information systems and society is the great challenge of our time."
And the urgency is growing exponentially with the big push to foist AI on us in every aspect of existence.
“If there is a useful and relevant political science literature on the processes through which random social media memes are becoming the basis for dramatic changes in U.S. governmental structures and policies, I’d love to see it. I don’t think it currently exists.”
Not in political science (that I can think of) but yes in sociology: Jen Schradie (2019)
I sheepishly ask if anyone has seriously considered the “magicking” of the alt-right, as in the doc “You Can’t Kill Meme”—is there anything serious there to consider?
I've been writing about Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes" for years because I think it's the best work of political theory about the attention era, even if it was written long before. At the dawn of constitutional monarchies -- transparent government -- what is too much information? Is it helpful for the public to gape? Does a transparently clad leader change the underlying structures of democracy? How do the invisible threads of decorum -- the pretending not to see -- matter for a working social fabric?
More political scientists should read Andersen. He knew what he was seeing.
I don't know if he has been reading Hayes, but Paul Krugman recently wrote:
«And the fact that so many voters seemed oblivious to clear signs about what Trump would do if he won ought to inform every discussion about how to oppose him.
I generally try not to be one of those people saying “This is what Democrats must do,” for a couple of reasons. One is that I don’t have firm views about what works politically. Another is that all too often “what Democrats must do” just happens to reflect the speaker’s policy preferences rather than a realistic assessment of political effectiveness.
But I can’t help noticing that the inverse correlation between how Americans voted in 2024 and their real interests makes it clear that two of the main factions in the intra-party debate about Democrats’ next moves are talking nonsense.
On one side there are relatively conservative Democrats and Democratic-leaning pundits telling us that the party must move to the center. But when it comes to Social Security, which is really important to most Americans, Democrats — who want to preserve the program — are very much in the center, while Republicans — who want to kill it — are extremists. Yet last November, the voters who have most to lose from this extremism didn’t notice.
On the other side there are progressives who argue that Democrats are in trouble because they abandoned the working class. But even if you think that Democrats have been too friendly toward globalization, or deregulation, or low corporate taxes, the Democratic Party has been far more favorable to workers than the Republicans. The Biden administration was especially pro-worker. But working-class voters didn’t notice.
What all this says is that the priority for Democrats isn’t to pursue whatever you think is a better policy mix. It is to get voters to notice. »
You raised excellent points. When you mention the political scientists' blindness, you could be speaking of an even more (theoretically) specialized cadre of geopolitical risk intelligence analysts (the same ones who have been warning us for the past twelve months about the catastrophic impact AI would have on the 2024 elections and democracies around the world).
You also mention forthcoming discussions about AI's role in attention and decision-making. Please consider that some of us are actively working in this area within the context of risk intelligence, leveraging AI to bridge traditional intelligence tradecraft- the oldest legacy practice aimed at improving the noise-to-signal ratio- cognitive-behavioral insights, and decision analysis and quality principles. Our immediate goal is to address the challenges of information curation and attention pruning in an organizational context, but it's clear to me that AI holds immense potential to help us all navigate the information singularity age that we are entering as we speak.
I'm unconvinced that attention is the problem. Americans didn't need to be paying close attention fo be aware of Trump's insurrection in 2021. A majority of them (Trump voters and non-voters) watched it and chose to ignore it. That isn't just a crisis of democracy, it's a rejection of democracy, and we are now seeing the consequences.
İ don't know how relevant this is but Rob Horning recently wrote a small post on how AI slop might affect politics.
Not sure if this specifically relates to random memes and politics but it is, İ think, relevant to the more general relation between attention and politics:
The presentation of the present, and the full throated response, burn linear discourse, individual will. Atomization, and phenomenologizing language to be independent of parochial context, thee is no there there.
Thanks for the insightful essay — the attention economy is crowding out democratic deliberation and societies need ways out of this trap. An admittedly quick reaction: makes me want to check out Marshall Mc Luhan again …
This offers a lot of needed context to the narratives around Putin's apparent triumph, covered most recently by Franklin Foer in The Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/putin-russia-won/681959/
My belief is that Putin got extremely lucky with regards to the rise of the attention economy - primarily social media, and that without Twitter and Facebook, Putin's campaigns to unmake the West almost certainly would have failed. In this way, it is not a case, as Foer argues, "that the Russian leader has bent the West to his vision." Rather, the West - and the world - bent itself to the vision of Silicon Valley and the attention economy, and Putin's aims here happened to coincide nicely with this ouroboros-esque reimagining of Western society. Putin was certainly savvy enough to recognize this phenomenon and took steps to capitalize on it, but he himself was not the means by which the world was bent.
Interesting point. It have to do with Putin leveraging Russian hackers (who were already acting for profit) for his political aims. I doubt Putin himself is all that tech savvy - although with his KGB background, I could be wrong about that.
How does one differentiate the construct of an "attention economy" from that of a mass substrate for propaganda? After all, the net results are the same: persuasion round a particular point of view, and the most expeditious way of achieving that.
"If there is a political scientist who predicted how Musk could effectively leverage his position to eliminate US-AID despite the legal and political barriers, I don’t know who she or he is. It certainly wasn’t me. As far as I can see, political scientists don’t even know how to think about these questions -"
But perhaps historians do. It isn't a unique time in history. Authoritarians have done the same throughout history - effectively throwing over the chess table and doing what they wanted with enablers. Henry VII on divorce despite religious objections, Hitler overturning law to be what he says and getting judges to accede, are just 2 that come to mind.
As regards attention and information, hasn't this been a nearly perennial problem? Each new technology, printing, radio, television, and social media are decried as creating too much information and swaying opinions. Is Musk's control of X/Twitter really that different from Hearst's control of a large newspaper chain? Murdoch did the same with tabloid newspapers, tv, and radio.
As to human attention. Computers do the drudge work. My days in the 1970s in university library stacks hunting references are thankfully long past. We see today how reducing information overload results in people just reading headlines, never mind the lede or the story. In the 1980's Richard Wurman wrote "Information Anxiety" and how to deal with it. In the 1990s there were arguments about editing vs being exposed to the hose pipe of information flow. Now we have a near-infinite amount of content, including this blog. The trick, if there is any such thing, is to curate what you imbibe, because the sea of content is like Borges' Library of Babel. The good and useful content are needles in straw silos. One must not go down attention rabbit holes.
But as I said, history is a guide to the answers - what happened in similar times, what worked and what didn't? Reading Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism" it is not clear why some countries fell into fascism, while others did not. More detail of cultural attitudes and conditions might better expose the reasons, although economic conditions seem primary to me. The information flow itself seems of lesser importance, but as we see in the contemporary USA, well-designed propaganda is a tool that can be exploited. As for why Musk can do as he likes, he is enabled by what is still called the Republican Party where [evidence of] fear prevents individuals from stopping this nonsense. Fear of the state and of the population are important motivators of self-preservation., each operating at different times, and each using that power to upend the various means to control a large population. in 50 tears historians will be writing about and explaining this period. Will sociologists have anything useful to contribute?
By reading your comment I’m halfway down a rabbit hole, otherwise sometimes called serendipity:)
"...and we feel as though we are drowning."
A lot of that feeling is induced intentionally. You might call it weaponizing attention.
Another big problem with information overload is quantity over quality. There's just so much garbage being hurled our way. It opens the door for propagandists to exploit and capture attention. Murdoch properties, especially Faux Newspeak is a prime example of this phenomenon.
It opens rabbit holes for those captured to go down. It might begin with Faux, then move to Newsmax, then Breitbart, and from there 4chan, 8chan and Qanon are only a click away.
"...the new economy enables needy grotesques like Trump and Musk to pursue their endless need for attention."
Trump and Musks need for attention is a distraction from their need to steal wealth from the bototm and funnel it to themselves. It's not that they don't crave attention, of course they do, but they weaponize it for a more nefarious purpose - which is their primary goal.
"It seems at the least extremely likely that changes in the technology and bandwidth of information affect the issue space, and arguments over it. But how?"
These are very interesting questions. I don't think it's realistic to examine how technology and information bandwidth affect the issue space separately from the political atmosphere that has existed since long before the web grew into the monster it is today.
To be sure, in general, the information highway (and in particular the right wing extremist segment) has had a significant impact. But it was merely amplifying "the message" that's been promoted since the McCarthy era. Before that there was right wing radio (especially Rush Limbaugh and Bob Grant), and also print (Buchanan, Safire, Coulter, Malkin et al). The list goes on for miles.
"How might the attention economy remake the underlying structures of democracy?"
An equally interesting question. I have no doubt the web has profoundly changed the underlying structures of propaganda delivery. To what extent that impacts the underlying structures of democracy itself depends on who's in power. Who's in power is, of course, impacted by the information overload/propagandizing that's been exacerbated by technology, especially the web. It's a bit of a vicious circle, isn't it? Or what we techies call "infinite recursion".
Musk represents a previously unknown quantity. His sudden ascent to power was unpredictable. Historians will be studying and writing about Musk's rise to power for generations to come. One thing is clear, he both bribed (giant campaign donations) and stroked Trumps ego. A notable point about Trump is that he's both a con artist, and an easy mark. Con artistry is a characteristic both Trump and Musk share.
"...understanding the relationship between information systems and society is the great challenge of our time."
And the urgency is growing exponentially with the big push to foist AI on us in every aspect of existence.
“If there is a useful and relevant political science literature on the processes through which random social media memes are becoming the basis for dramatic changes in U.S. governmental structures and policies, I’d love to see it. I don’t think it currently exists.”
Not in political science (that I can think of) but yes in sociology: Jen Schradie (2019)
https://bit.ly/SchraJ-2019
I sheepishly ask if anyone has seriously considered the “magicking” of the alt-right, as in the doc “You Can’t Kill Meme”—is there anything serious there to consider?
You have convinced me to read the Chris Hayes book!
I’ve bought it as result :)
I've been writing about Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes" for years because I think it's the best work of political theory about the attention era, even if it was written long before. At the dawn of constitutional monarchies -- transparent government -- what is too much information? Is it helpful for the public to gape? Does a transparently clad leader change the underlying structures of democracy? How do the invisible threads of decorum -- the pretending not to see -- matter for a working social fabric?
More political scientists should read Andersen. He knew what he was seeing.
I don't know if he has been reading Hayes, but Paul Krugman recently wrote:
«And the fact that so many voters seemed oblivious to clear signs about what Trump would do if he won ought to inform every discussion about how to oppose him.
I generally try not to be one of those people saying “This is what Democrats must do,” for a couple of reasons. One is that I don’t have firm views about what works politically. Another is that all too often “what Democrats must do” just happens to reflect the speaker’s policy preferences rather than a realistic assessment of political effectiveness.
But I can’t help noticing that the inverse correlation between how Americans voted in 2024 and their real interests makes it clear that two of the main factions in the intra-party debate about Democrats’ next moves are talking nonsense.
On one side there are relatively conservative Democrats and Democratic-leaning pundits telling us that the party must move to the center. But when it comes to Social Security, which is really important to most Americans, Democrats — who want to preserve the program — are very much in the center, while Republicans — who want to kill it — are extremists. Yet last November, the voters who have most to lose from this extremism didn’t notice.
On the other side there are progressives who argue that Democrats are in trouble because they abandoned the working class. But even if you think that Democrats have been too friendly toward globalization, or deregulation, or low corporate taxes, the Democratic Party has been far more favorable to workers than the Republicans. The Biden administration was especially pro-worker. But working-class voters didn’t notice.
What all this says is that the priority for Democrats isn’t to pursue whatever you think is a better policy mix. It is to get voters to notice. »
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/social-security-a-time-for-outrage
Thanks for flagging the book, however a shorter prose would consume less attention.
You raised excellent points. When you mention the political scientists' blindness, you could be speaking of an even more (theoretically) specialized cadre of geopolitical risk intelligence analysts (the same ones who have been warning us for the past twelve months about the catastrophic impact AI would have on the 2024 elections and democracies around the world).
Here's a related assessment: https://safeesteem.substack.com/p/the-ai-risk-intelligence-failure
You also mention forthcoming discussions about AI's role in attention and decision-making. Please consider that some of us are actively working in this area within the context of risk intelligence, leveraging AI to bridge traditional intelligence tradecraft- the oldest legacy practice aimed at improving the noise-to-signal ratio- cognitive-behavioral insights, and decision analysis and quality principles. Our immediate goal is to address the challenges of information curation and attention pruning in an organizational context, but it's clear to me that AI holds immense potential to help us all navigate the information singularity age that we are entering as we speak.
I'm unconvinced that attention is the problem. Americans didn't need to be paying close attention fo be aware of Trump's insurrection in 2021. A majority of them (Trump voters and non-voters) watched it and chose to ignore it. That isn't just a crisis of democracy, it's a rejection of democracy, and we are now seeing the consequences.
İ don't know how relevant this is but Rob Horning recently wrote a small post on how AI slop might affect politics.
Not sure if this specifically relates to random memes and politics but it is, İ think, relevant to the more general relation between attention and politics:
https://thepointmag.com/politics/the-sound-of-my-own-voice/
"Information...consumes the attention of its recipients." -- Herbert Simon, "Designing organization for an information-rich world." (1971)
Here is an animated graphical picture of knowledge and attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEaPv1k3BTk
This is Chapter 5 of "New Addition to Economics"
You need to have a visual picture of attention, information and knowledge. This is not a quantity, it is a pattern
The presentation of the present, and the full throated response, burn linear discourse, individual will. Atomization, and phenomenologizing language to be independent of parochial context, thee is no there there.
Thanks for the insightful essay — the attention economy is crowding out democratic deliberation and societies need ways out of this trap. An admittedly quick reaction: makes me want to check out Marshall Mc Luhan again …