The Attention Merchants

It's an in-depth analysis of how the “attention merchants” have been capturing our attention and re-purposing it for more than a century now. It's a walk into the history of media and advertising from the 1800's to today: pamphlets, posters, ad-subsidized newspapers (The New York Sun), radio, TV, the internet on personal computer and mobile phones.
It's interesting to see the evolution of the advertisement industry and realize that old concepts were transported to new types of media. And also how advertisements were always fighting for our attention at any cost.
This book makes us think about our behavior towards our internet use because we realize we are being manipulated all the time. And the internet exacerbated the advertisement model, with companies like Facebook and Google, who serves and commercializes ads.

A history of media and it's monetisation. I was hoping for more coverage of the underlying psychology of this but it provided scant insight. Some of it I found interesting like the coverage of war-time propaganda but it lost my interest with the rise of media sluts and slutworks like Oprah Winfrey & reality TV. Would be a good book for someone interested in the history of media.