Social Justice in an Attention Economy

The latest Paris Hilton hysteria has got me thinking: are we being robbed? With the media so focused on the blonde-tressed heiress's inane flounderings through the Los Angeles penal system, aren't there a whole lot more important topics -- ahem, Net Neutrality -- we should be focusing on? With everyone's attention made increasingly scarce by increased workloads, the proliferation of TV channels, and the latest web 2.0 app-of-the-minute, who's NOT getting attention? What about the old, the sick, the elderly, the brilliant, and the necessary? Redistribution of wealth has long been a concern of social justice movements past and present. But their focus has traditionally been on material wealth, not attention wealth. Without seeking to minimize this very real concern (people still starve in America, FYI), what would it mean to give people a fighting chance in an economy increasingly focused on one's ability to capture, keep, and redirect attention from others? Is it only the stars who will survive? Hilton's family may hog a lot of financial wealth, but she herself is guilty of attention greed. And it is people like she who must be fought should the lore-filled grandmas, mute starving children, and good-hearted scientists of the world get a chance in a spotlight. But how do you fight for justice in an attention economy? For one: make the uninteresting and obscure accessible and fascination. Find ways to reframe things currently perceived as "boring" or "lame" using marketing techniques, design, copy writing, web apps like YouTube, and other tricks of the purple cow trade. More importantly: help those who are struggling to get noticed find in themselves what actually is WORTH noticing, why the world needs it, and how it can be made more public. This past winter marked the passing of my last remaining grandparent, my maternal grandfather Joe. As with all of my previous grandparents, what I regretted most with his passing -- along with missing his voice, face, and presence -- was all of the knowledge and experience he contained within his slender frame, knowledge which could/should have been better captured for the benefit of all of us. While he was by no means unnoticed (in fact, he was a pillar of his local community), he certainly had more to share that could benefit humanity than an attention hog like Hilton. (Interestingly, he himself was a staunch advocate of social justice.) So now, with the Grandpa Joes of the world fading away and Parisian idiocracy holding sway, what will a new movement for equality, fairness, and most of all, compassion, look like in an Attention Economy? How will it sound? Where will it appear? But most of all: who will notice it? Us, I hope.