On Trump's CNN Townhall

In regards to CNN putting this trash on television. Way I see it, basing this on my worthless grad school work on Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan and so forth, the electric teevee machine isn’t designed for real debate, just entertainment. So despite claiming they are a news source, their trying to entertain (unlike say PBS or whatever). It’s purpose is to get you there and keep you watching. He’s on their network to do the dog and pony show and bring in unlikely viewers, maybe (wishful thinking here) win some over by pandering to them. “See we aren’t liberal after all! Trump is here! We gave him a platform and let him say whatever he wants (pretty much).” So they keep pandering, inching farther right. Bring on someone like Jeffrey Lord and Tomi Lauren to say whatever Trump says is normal and that he was the greatest president ever. Hoping to get more viewers and more advertising and all that.

The aim is to seem middle of the road to get both sides watching. To do this, media companies in this lane give crazy a platform and constantly cover it. This always has the effect of normalizing it. “If the election wasn’t stolen, why would they let him repeatedly say this?” “If he was a rapist, why would they let him joke about it?” So forth. Plus, I think we’re still in this climate change and guns everywhere mess because both sides get treated as valid. Right-wing media is treated pretty fairly though they outright lie and deny the other side as being valid at all. So what we get is the echo chamber saying congress shutting down the government is great (or whatever), and then the mainstream saying, “well, they have a point.”

Trump’s gift, from a media theory perspective, is his ability to own people’s attention because he understands how mediums like television own our attention. So he stokes conflict, turning everything into can’t-look-away entertainment.

CNN knows this. They are not innocent. Yeah, viewers make the choice to watch, but they’re manipulated into doing so. Trump won in 2016 because of this shit.