Distributed Attention. A Media History of Distraction

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In actual debates the reception of modern mass media is, almost unconsciously, stigmatized as distraction. At the same time strategies of steering one’s attention achieve much interest. In contrast, distraction is mostly understood as the opposite of attention or concentration. However, this book reveals that, as soon as around 1800, distraction was regarded as distributed attention and promoted as an important technique of perception. The distribution of attention between several subject matters is a technology of the self that enables anticipation of what will happen and that can be exercised. Furthermore, distraction has become, in relation to exhausting labour, a necessity as relaxation and diversion. Thus, a media history of distraction closes a severe desideratum within media theory and theory of modernity.