Attention as a commodity in the world of disinformation and social media

The dynamic development of information and communication technologies, systems and devices, the emergence of new digital media and platforms, as well as the increasingly widespread use of social networks, on the one hand, increase the availability of information and expand the possibilities of searching, receiving, creating, modifying and sharing it, on the other hand, in a significant way increase the risk of spreading misleading, altered, distorted, deceptive and/or invented information, for example, in the form of disinformation. Given the fact that current business models and the ecosystem of advertising technology allow advertising to be tailored based on already known preferences and previous interactions of users, based on their profile, interests, activities, content they interact with, and even their interpersonal relationships, media, platform, social networks and advertisers try – to achieve the best possible economic results – to attract the sustainable attention of their users. Unfortunately, in many cases, it is also through the spread of disinformation. In this context, the authors, using relevant methods of scientific research, focused on attention as a commodity and the functioning of the attention economy in the context of the increasing extent of the spread of various disinformation (but also hoaxes and conspiracy theories) primarily through social networks, their susceptibility to the spread of unwanted content and efforts to regulate the spread of such content.