The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
E60449
The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads is a nonfiction book that traces the history and mechanics of the attention economy, examining how media, advertising, and technology industries capture and monetize human attention.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Attention Merchants | 2 |
| The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T482623 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads Context triple: [Tim Wu, hasWritten, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads]
-
A.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires is a nonfiction book that examines the recurring cycle of openness and monopolistic control in communications and information industries throughout modern history.
-
B.
The Business of Happiness
The Business of Happiness is a book by entrepreneur and sports team owner Ted Leonsis that blends memoir and business advice to argue that true success comes from pursuing happiness, meaning, and service to others alongside financial achievement.
-
C.
No Logo
No Logo is a landmark anti-corporate globalization book by Naomi Klein that critiques brand-driven consumer culture and the power of multinational corporations.
-
D.
Triumph of the Market
Triumph of the Market is a critical work by economist and media analyst Edward S. Herman that examines the social and political consequences of neoliberal, market-driven policies.
-
E.
People, Power, and Profits
People, Power, and Profits is a book by economist Joseph Stiglitz that critiques contemporary capitalism and proposes reforms to create a fairer, more inclusive economy and democracy.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads Target entity description: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads is a nonfiction book that traces the history and mechanics of the attention economy, examining how media, advertising, and technology industries capture and monetize human attention.
-
A.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires is a nonfiction book that examines the recurring cycle of openness and monopolistic control in communications and information industries throughout modern history.
-
B.
The Business of Happiness
The Business of Happiness is a book by entrepreneur and sports team owner Ted Leonsis that blends memoir and business advice to argue that true success comes from pursuing happiness, meaning, and service to others alongside financial achievement.
-
C.
No Logo
No Logo is a landmark anti-corporate globalization book by Naomi Klein that critiques brand-driven consumer culture and the power of multinational corporations.
-
D.
Triumph of the Market
Triumph of the Market is a critical work by economist and media analyst Edward S. Herman that examines the social and political consequences of neoliberal, market-driven policies.
-
E.
People, Power, and Profits
People, Power, and Profits is a book by economist Joseph Stiglitz that critiques contemporary capitalism and proposes reforms to create a fairer, more inclusive economy and democracy.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
nonfiction book ⓘ |
| aimsTo |
explain how industries compete for human attention
ⓘ
raise awareness of attention exploitation ⓘ |
| author | Tim Wu ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| describes |
evolution of advertising techniques
ⓘ
how media companies monetize attention ⓘ impact of smartphones on attention ⓘ psychological manipulation in marketing ⓘ role of the internet in the attention economy ⓘ |
| format |
audiobook
ⓘ
ebook ⓘ print ⓘ |
| genre |
business
ⓘ
history of advertising ⓘ media studies ⓘ technology and society ⓘ |
| hasPart |
analysis of contemporary digital platforms
ⓘ
historical case studies ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
general readers
ⓘ
readers interested in media and technology ⓘ |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0385352016 ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| notableIdea |
history of attention capture industries
ⓘ
human attention as a tradable commodity ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 2016 ⓘ |
| publisher |
Alfred A. Knopf
ⓘ
Knopf ⓘ
linked to:
Alfred A. Knopf
|
| subject |
advertising industry
ⓘ
attention economy ⓘ behavioral targeting ⓘ clickbait ⓘ consumer protection ⓘ consumer psychology ⓘ data mining ⓘ digital platforms ⓘ mass media ⓘ newspaper advertising ⓘ online advertising ⓘ privacy ⓘ propaganda ⓘ radio broadcasting ⓘ social media ⓘ surveillance capitalism ⓘ television advertising ⓘ |
| timeSpanCovered | late 19th century to 21st century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads Description of subject: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads is a nonfiction book that traces the history and mechanics of the attention economy, examining how media, advertising, and technology industries capture and monetize human attention.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
subject linked to:
Tim
linked to: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads