Attentional Social Media: Mapping the Spaces and Networks of the Fashion Industry

摘要

In this article we use big data methods to analyze the attention paid to the fashion industry on social media. The article argues that for the fashion industry, like many industries, the core product is a form of knowledge that is dependent on gaining and holding people?s attention. To understand this attentional economy, social media offers a unique window because it is increasingly a central space within which fashion knowledge is created and shared. Using long-term, geotagged big data from Twitter, we analyze the hitherto difficult-to-explore spaces and places of the global fashion industry. The article suggests that the data confirm the ideas that there are a series of global fashion capitals that are especially important to the industry and that attention paid to fashion is highly uneven and varied across industry functions, national origins, and companies. Evidence is presented that attention to fashion is a global phenomenon that does not always directly link to where fashion products are sold. Attention to fashion is both a market-making mechanism for the industry as well as an indicator of wider social and cultural processes of tastemaking and identity formation within which fashion is entwined. The article concludes by suggesting that such data offer geographers new ways of looking at and linking economic, social, and cultural spaces and geographies and that social media analysis can help bridge boundaries that divide geographers. Key Words: attention economy, big data, economic geography, fashion industry, social media.???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Twitter ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? , ???, ?????, ????, ?????En este art?culo usamos m?todos de big data para analizar la atenci?n prestada a la industria de la moda en los medios sociales. En el art?culo se arguye que, para el caso de la industria de la moda, como ocurre en otras industrias, el producto central es una forma de conocimiento que depende de ganar la atenci?n de la gente, y de conservarla. Para entender esta econom?a atencional, los medios sociales son un ventanal ?nico, ya que es ah? donde los medios crecientemente funcionan como un espacio central dentro del cual se crea y se comparte el conocimiento de la moda. Usando big data georreferenciados de Twitter, analizamos a largo plazo los espacios y lugares de la industria de la moda, hasta ahora dif?ciles de explorar. El art?culo sugiere que los datos confirman las ideas de que hay una serie de capitales globales de la moda que tienen especial importancia para la industria, y que la atenci?n que se dispensa a la moda es muy desigual y variada a trav?s de las funciones de la industria, or?genes nacionales y compa??as. Se presenta evidencia de que la atenci?n a la moda es un fen?meno global, no siempre enlazado directamente con los lugares donde sus productos son vendidos. La atenci?n que se presta a la moda es tanto un mecanismo que crea mercado para la industria como un indicador de procesos culturales y sociales m?s amplios de construcci?n de gusto y formaci?n de identidad dentro de los cuales se entrama la moda.