EP 473: Unpacking Attention Fetishism with Jess Shane

Our podcast feeds and streaming services are full of real stories of real people. And not all of those stories feel... true. I mean, even if the facts are accurate, the way something is edited, packaged, and marketed can dramatically alter a story's impact.

Artist and audio producer Jess Shane wanted to create a project that would expose some of the problematic elements of this booming (and highly profitable) industry. The result is a podcast series for Radiotopia Presents called Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative. Listening to it made me deeply uncomfortable, so I knew I needed to have her on What Works to discuss it!

In this episode, you'll get the behind-the-scenes on this project. And you'll learn what happens when attention becomes a fetish.

Footnotes:

• Listen to Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative from Radiotopia Presents
• Find out more about Jess Shane
• Curated Stories: The Uses and Misuses of Storytelling by Sujatha Fernandes
• The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han

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What is What Works?

"Work" is broken. We're overcommitted, underutilized, and out of whack. But it doesn't have to be this way. What Works is a podcast about rethinking work, business, and leadership as we navigate the 21st-century economy. When you're an entrepreneur, independent worker, or employee who doesn't want to lose yourself to the whims of late-stage capitalism, this show is for you. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.