Pawns in the TV playground
Since the television viewer is no longer a purely passive consumer of the accustomed TV soup of fragmented information mixed with anecdotes and crude jokes and is now a pawn in the TV ratings war, his (or her) identity has splintered. And this applies even to the few Greeks who have not participated in TV shows as a studio audience member, contestant, «eyewitness» or «plaintiff.» Indeed, most television viewers are on both sides of the TV screen at the same time – between reality and the fictitious re-enactment of everyday life. This inability to distinguish between today’s and yesterday’s coverage makes the viewer more listless than ever before, since watching TV simply leads to greater confusion. The TV viewer has become a disarmed and weak player – critical only in his manner and not in his stance, apparently mistrustful but actually fascinated by every worthless piece of trash that flashes across his television screen. All this has produced an entirely new culture – a culture of utter indifference which has been created by an unprecedented, but strong, wave of jumbled ideas, convictions and habits. Basically, TV is one massive playground where children grow up too quickly and grownups regress.
