Attention is not everything, but without attention, everything is for nothing—at least in the social world. Attention is generally considered to be scarce and valuable, but at times it can also be undesirable, irksome or even dangerous. Media directed the flow of attention even in the pre-digital era, but digitalization has brought constant, rapid changes to strategies and the rules of play in the race for attention. Yesterday’s winners may be tomorrow’s losers. This year’s conference was dedicated to the question: “What do we pay attention to?”

The SACM Annual Conference 2023 was organized by the Institute for Communication and Marketing (IKM) of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). On April 21, IMI and C4DT hosted a session featuring exciting speakers under the theme “Technology or media: who will save quality information?” which attracted around 50 participants.