A Study on “Attention Harvesting” Strategies used by Mass Media and its Implications

Abstract

Due to innovation in Mass Media content and invention of New Media technologies such as Smartphone and Internet, the society and in fact the whole world has become “mediatized” i.e. societal institutions are getting more and more dependent on the media. But when it comes to media and corporate houses, both are interdependent on each other. Media in order to survive and thrive uses various revenue models. This includes collecting fee in form of subscription. But this is not enough; they also sell attention of audience that they capture to third parties (mainly advertisers) who use it for pushing their product, influencing behavior etc. In the long run it has led to lots of major problems, few of them being- invasion of privacy, predatory advertising, polarization of votes during election, manipulating behavior of people by exploiting their weakness etc. It seems that this “interdependent” relationship is turning into more of a nexus. Thus a study was conducted to explore advertising and content strategies adopted by media platforms and how it is affecting the whole society and people’s behavior in particular.