TV news is the new, (well not that new,) PTSD?
Yes, well, TV can’t take you there live, really,
but they can do their damn best
to experientially trigger it as live
as a mental response in you!
Of course this is a sneak attack,
looks like news, as in,
informative of nature is the fallback claim
but really TV, for its sponsors investment,
needs to be attention grabbing
but strictly for commercial purposes only!
We want your attention as a staunch bystander witness.
We want you glued to the screen,
of course, all the way through the commercials also.
How the hell do you think this works?
So quite innocently, we are going for hyper-arousal.
Think of it as educational stress, the likes there of,
alerting where not to be and what not to do, sort of.
We figure, and quite conclusively,
that if we get your sympathetic nervous system
to discharge over the news,
then we have successfully done our job.
No, it’s not the end of the world news.
It may not even be relevant news to you personally
but still, stress related interest is good enough,
as long as you feel impact, then TV be good.
Hey over time, by a process of shot-gun conditioning,
your experience of the news becomes more immersive.
You can experience first person anxiety,
thought-provoked apprehension,
possibly internal hormonal cascades in response.
If there then becomes say, flashbacks or nightmares
or fear restimulations, well, that is not us!
No court of law will connect those dots together!
Look, our content specificity is strictly, the news.
You can think of it for yourself as an interest addiction
or simply curiosity voyeurism to soothe yourself
in your cramped self sense of isolation.
No one would admit, say that the news, as a format
would actually be using principles of psychological warfare
to get their impact made evident.
But really, over time, within the cultural bind of
television,
the TV news is the new, low key but prevalent, PTSD . . .
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