Abstract

The article enters into the current discussion about an ernerging economy of attention. The author rejects the idea of a substitution of a monetary economy by an economy of attention and instead points out the strong connection between the market and human attention which is established by advertising. Basedon the distinction between perceptive and communicative attention, the dynamic of the media system- which attracts and absorbs large quantities of attention by offering audiovisual spaces of perception - is analysed. In addition to this analysis, the place of the church in this cultural situation is examined. As part of a realistic Christian media ethics the author argues in favor of an ecology of attention which would take into account the preservation and development of a dynamic cultural texture, i.e. a sociocultural as well as an individual polyphony of life.