Pricing the Eyes of Passersby: The Commodification of Audience Attention in U.S. Public Spaces, 1890-1920
Document Type
Article - Merrimack Access Only
Publication Title
Review of Radical Political Economics
Publication Date
7-2014
Abstract/ Summary
This paper explains the growth of the U.S. advertising industry around 1900 by showing how advertisers and advertising professionals established institutions and practices that converted audience attention into a form of tradable property. My empirical work on billposting illuminates the central role that the pursuit of monopoly played in constructing a commodity form of access to pedestrians’ gazes.
Repository Citation
Sherman, Z.
(2014). Pricing the Eyes of Passersby: The Commodification of Audience Attention in U.S. Public Spaces, 1890-1920. Review of Radical Political Economics, 46(4), 502-508.
Available at: https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/eco_facpub/1
