Impartial broadcast formats recruit viewers into a falsely neutral spectator position

Evidence

This tendency of broadcasting to stand above conflict and judge it impartially is especially damaging for the viewer, who is encouraged to identify with the presenter, and who thus comes to see himself as a neutral and dispassionate party to a partisan and impassioned struggle: the disinvolved spectator before the spectacle of conflict. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 870

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s ongoing theme of media shaping the citizen’s felt relationship to politics, and to spectacle/spectator analyses familiar from critical theory.