The influence of television on our society

Some television channels cause an alarming cognitive impairment among viewers.

The influence of television, through soap operas, entertainment, commercials, news programs, etc., is widely recognized and has important and persistent repercussions, both at the cognitive, civic and political levels.

How does television influence us?

Based on the article "The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV By Ruben Durante, Paolo Pinotti, and Andrea Tesei", published in the American Economic Review (American Economic Review 2019, 109(7):2497-2530) in which we measure the influence of access and viewing of Mediaset content and how it affected people's critical capacity especially the decision making and voting intention towards Berlusconi (this being the referent of populisms).

This channel stands out for its "trash TV" content, with very little educational content, focused on banal and unsophisticated entertainment rather than cultural content.It focuses on more banal aspects and unsophisticated entertainment than on cultural content, and all of them in general with a tendency towards simplistic content.

Modulating our voting intentions

What we see in this study, for example, is that analyzing the differences between the time when people had access to the channel, and therefore the time they have been exposed to it, is directly proportional to the intention to vote for Berlusconi (Populism) in the different elections held.

If a person was exposed to the contents of this television when they were minors, when they reach adulthood, they will be cognitively less sophisticated. and will have less commitment at the socio-political level than children who were not exposed to this channel, which may end up leading to a vulnerability to populist rhetoric, which, in this case, was the one used by Berlusconi.

This is confirmed by the fact that people who watched this "Telebasura" as children performed worse in numeracy and literacy than those who were not exposed to it (data measured by psychometric tests). In the area of less civic engagement, in addition to the ITANES questionnaire, interest in political issues and participation in voluntary associations were taken into account.

Children and elderly people, the most vulnerable groups

There are two groups that are particularly important and where the effects are greatestThe effects are greatest among those who were exposed to Mediaset (both those under 10 years of age and those over 55). These two groups are, precisely, the age groups that consume the most television and, therefore, the ones that are reflecting the greatest effects.

A group of special relevance, due to the worrying influence, is the group that was over 55 years old when they started watching this channel. In this case, the difference is 10 points in comparison with the same age group that did not watch this content. One possible explanation can be found in the evolution of the content broadcast by the channel. At the beginning, the programming tended to be light content and simple entertainment, but little by little these people became regular viewers of the channel. Up to this point, the main risk suffered was the tendency of viewers not to develop cognitively or civically.

In 1991, the network introduced news programs, but these were biased in favor of Berlusconi, so that not only was there a vulnerability to populist rhetoric due to less cognitive sophistication and civic involvement, but also they themselves were the ones who provided it in their news programs.

Regarding the tendency to vote for populism of people who were mainly exposed to Mediaset and who were "educated" with it, the study shows that the difference is up to eight percentage points above those who were not "educated" with Mediaset.

The influence of Mediaset as soon as the populations stopped voting for Berlusconi in 2013, there was a rise of the 5 Star Movement.a more radical populism. It follows therefore that the vast majority of people who until then had voted for Berlusconi, had now shifted to support the 5 Star Movement. With this fact, we can reflect that what really got the voting intention was more the populist rhetoric, which in both cases is shared, than the policies or ideologies, highlighting also that both formations were especially popular among the less educated and socially engaged population.

Important educational consequences

The results of this study are that minors who were exposed to this type of television entertainment are less cognitively sophisticated as adults, as adults, are less cognitively sophisticated and less civic-minded.These factors make them more vulnerable to the populist rhetoric of, in that case, Berlusconi, and currently the 5 Star Movement.

After all this, we must ask ourselves if this could be happening to us, if it is something we want to happen and to what extent we are susceptible to suffer a negative influence in our political and civic behaviors and end up modifying our own values due to a bad choice in our entertainment.