Is light amusement dumbing us down ? It ’s an old disputation , but a Modern study suggests that photograph to unchallenging TV reduced Italians ' thinking capacity and made them more likely to vote for politicians offering simplistic solution . The authors ' attack to draw a link to Trump ’s election is unsurprising , but debatable .
Silvio Berlusconi was Prime Minister of Italy three time between 1994 and 2011 , largely through establishing a television internet , Mediaset , that made him Brobdingnagian amount of money and acted as a propaganda machine during his political career . A billionaire with a tame media outlet starts with a huge political vantage , but was there more to it than that ? Did the diet of soap operas and game show make viewers more likely to support a candidate who offered simple solvent to complex problems and wooed the electorate with incontrovertibly false claims ?
Dr Andrea Teseiof Queen Mary University of London call back there was a elbow room to find out , and the determination might have implications beyond Italy .
Mediaset did not become approachable to all Italians simultaneously . Some regions could see it geezerhood before others . The rollout was found not on Berlusconi identifying the areas most likely to be receptive to its computer programming of sport , cartoons , and “ light entertainment ” , but on where transmitter were for sale , and whether they were obstructed by mountains . Consequently , Tesei reasoned , the rollout make a natural experiment , allowing a comparison between the timing of Mediaset ’s arrival and vote pattern years after .
Areas that Mediaset was usable in in 1985 recorded a 1 percentage higher balloting for Berlusconi ’s Forza Italia company over five election held up to two decade later , Tesei reports in a yet to be match revieweddiscussion paper . The difference was 3 percent among multitude who did n’t finish high school , and concentrated among age groups that watch the most television .
The Forza Italia balloting might be attributed to people who had spend years enjoying Berlusconi ’s production feeling favorable to him . However , Tesei note the residents of Mediaset ’s early catchments also perform bad on cognitive tests ( by 5 percent among prime age groups ) . Interest in politics , and even affaire in voluntary group , also showed strong coefficient of correlation . Other “ populist ” politicians have subsequently made these areas strongholds .
" Our results indicate that individual exposed to entertainment tv set as children are less cognitively advanced and less socio - politically engaged as adults , and ultimately more vulnerable to Berlusconi ’s populist rhetoric , ” Tesei say in astatement .
The fameThe Apprenticegenerated certainly help Trump ’s campaign . Nevertheless , with so many other potential variable quantity , Tesei may be jump the gun inclaiming : “ Our solution hint that amusement content can influence political attitudes , creating a fertile ground for the spread of populist subject matter …. The final result are timely as the United States adjust to the Presidency of Donald Trump . "
