Home » Posts tagged 'marketing' (Page 2)

Tag Archives: marketing

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Fierce Assaults on the “Attentional Commons”

March 17, 2015

Fierce Assaults on the “Attentional Commons”

People in tech circles often talk about the “attention economy” with knowing nonchalance.  Instead of things being scarce, they note, the real shortage these days ispeople’s attention.  Hence the ferocious drive to capture people’s attention.

This analysis is true as far as it goes.  What it fails to address is that the “attention economy” is not really an “economy.”  It is a predatory invasion of our consciousness. Sellers are using every possible technique to colonize our minds and emotions at the most elemental levels in a relentless attempt to prod us to buy, buy, buy.

Author Matthew B. Crawford made an eloquent case for the “attentional commons” in an opinion piece, “The Cost of Paying Attention,” in Sunday’s New York Times (March 8).  “What if we saw attention in the same way that we saw air or water, as a valuable resource that we hold in common?” he asks.  “Perhaps, if we could envision an ‘attentional commons,’ then we could figure out how to protect it.”

Crawford recounts a series of all-to-familiar intrusions upon our attention:  ads on the little screen used to swipe credit cards at the grocery store…. ads for lipstick on the trays at airport security screening lines…. “endlessly recurring message from the Lincoln Financial Group” along the moving handrail on an airport escalator….the ubiquitous chatter of CNN and TV ads in the airport lounge.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Corporations Are Not People”: A Lawyer’s Book About Fighting Back Against Corporate Personhood | Occupy.com

December 22, 2014

“Corporations Are Not People”: A Lawyer’s Book About Fighting Back Against Corporate Personhood | Occupy.com.

The title says it all: Corporations Are Not People. And Jeff Clements is in a position to know. During his tenure at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office, Clements was involved in a number of cases that saw corporations eager to gain all the rights of a person without holding the responsibility of a person.

Clements highlights one such case in his new book, involving a cigarette company.

“The law that we worked on was intended to stop the kind of targeting practices they were doing around middle schools and playgrounds,” Clements explains. “Literally, part of their marketing included how to addict middle school kids, young teenagers.”

In a trend that is now familiar in what Clements refers to as the “Second Gilded Age,” the law was struck down by the Supreme Court, suggesting that “the free speech rights of the cigarette corporation had been violated by limiting their advertising around school yards.”

Anyone with a conscience knows that this feels wrong. Courts, of course, don’t run on feelings. But here’s why that ruling, and others like it, are wrong both legally and logically.

– See more at: http://www.occupy.com/article/corporations-are-not-people-lawyers-book-about-fighting-back-against-corporate-personhood#sthash.814cPiRP.dpuf

Post navigation

Newer posts →

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress