Is the flu dangerous for most people? If not, why not? Do governments overstate case numbers? How do they actually test patients for the flu? Are the tests accurate? Are they just trying to convince us to get vaccines?
What happens when the government has overwhelming force and citizens have no guns?
When researchers keep saying "may" and "could," does that mean they've actually discovered something useful about autism, or are they just hyping their own work and trying to get funding for their next project?
These are only a few of the many questions the typical viewer never considers.
Therefore, every story on the news broadcast achieves the goal of keeping the context thin -- night after night, year after year. The overall effect of this staging is: small viewer, small viewer's mind, small viewer's understanding.
The average viewer, having been entrained through years of watching the news, is going to come to tonight's Presidential debate ready for thin context and no depth.
That's the subconscious expectation.
Can this expectation be reversed in 90 minutes, regardless of what either candidate says?
And if either candidate suddenly punches a hole in that expectation, will the average viewer welcome it, or will he feel shocked and disturbed by the intrusion? Will he resent it?
Or to put it another way, which candidate more closely resembles a network news anchor -- the familiar words, the familiar generalities, the thin context.
The networks that will broadcast the debate consider it a media/news event.
They will try to keep it within that space.
They think they own that space, which includes the viewer's mind.
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