Influencer Agencies: The Institutionalization of the Digital Attention Economy

In Lippmann’s media interpretation, attention plays a central role. Already at the beginning of the 20^th century, the author realizes that to understand the operational characteristics of mass media, it is essential to learn about the nature of consumer attention. Lippmann was one of the first researchers to discover that without examining attention, we cannot understand the patterns of persuasion or political, social, and cultural influence, and the peculiarities of media economy. Thus, in his work Public Opinion, published in 1922, he devoted a distinct chapter, entitled Time and Attention, to this topic. Lippmann’s legacy lives on with us in this sense as well. With the advent of digital media, new possibilities for exploiting attention appeared, and tracking the characteristics and changes of these is also of great importance in contemporary media research. The following study focuses on the institutionalization of the digital attention economy, and within it deals with influencer agencies as the newest segment of the media and cultural industry.