Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3808-9704
Date Available
5-14-2026
Year of Publication
2025
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
Geography
Faculty
Matthew Wilson
Faculty
Michael Samers
Abstract
A vast assemblage of networked devices populate our everyday spaces. Concomitant with the increasing ubiquity of media devices are advertisements. Indeed, many networked devices, specifically the “free-to-use” software applications, websites, or platforms displayed through them, are advertising-dependent. An assortment of firms within the commercial media industry—brands, agencies, publishers, vendors—work in concert to sustain a market for advertising. The core operation of the commercial media industry, I argue, is the production and exchange of attention as an economic object. In this study, I approach the production of attention and the framing of its markets as spatial processes. The continued growth of the commercial media industry depends on improving— increasing and optimizing—where, when, and to whom advertisements appear. Through these improvement efforts, I argue, firms variously conceptualize, measure, and model attention spaces: the relations of spatial encounter between subjects of advertising and media objects from which attention is understood to emerge. Empirically, I undertake archival and qualitative research to examine a variety of discursive frameworks, measurement regimes, and calculative models of U.S. firms from the turn of the 20th century through the current day.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.77
Funding Information
This study was supported through a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award from the National Science Foundation (no. 2336070) in 2024; a FOARE Fellowship for Outdoor Advertising Research from the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in 2023; an Exploratory Grant from the Hagley Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society in 2023; Barnhardt-Withington-Block Grant Research Funding from the University of Kentucky Department of Geography in 2023; an Endowed Fellowship from the University of Kentucky Association of Emeriti Faculty; and a travel grant from the University of Kentucky Committee on Social Theory in 2023.
Recommended Citation
Saindon, Jacob, "Commercial Attention Spaces: A Century of Discourses, Measurements, and Models of Attention in the Construction of U.S. Advertising Markets" (2025). Theses and Dissertations--Geography. 107.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/geography_etds/107
Included in
Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Human Geography Commons, Science and Technology Studies Commons, United States History Commons
