Unfocused immersivity. The new attention economy in digital environments

Abstract

The essay focuses on the relationship between attention and immersivity in the experience of digital media. The text aims at showing that this experience can be correctly understood only by developing a historical analysis of the notion of “attention”, and by considering the relationship between attention economy and the technological milieu, in which the subject is located. Therefore, the essay starts with a brief analysis of the concept of “attention” and with some historical remarks about the immersive character of media (with particular reference to the Greek notion of enargeia). By discussing Walter Benjamin’s theory of cinematic experience and Marshall McLuhan’s distinction between hot and cold media, the essay identifies the disjunction of attention and immersive experience as the core element in order to understand our relationship to digital media.