TV Show Story

German public TV (Channel Two, ZDF) has picked up an unusual method to counter or persuade the general public.  The TV show is called 'Moma vor Ort' (Moma on Site is the loose translation).  It's a morning show.....part of Morganmagazine, and the basic idea is that the crew will pack up and visit 'hot-spots' around Germany and talk to 'regular' Germans and local politicians.

What you can generally say is that via mass media and social media....around two years ago, it was apparent that politicians and local residents were no longer connected in Germany. 

You can put some blame on the rapid fire evolution of social media, but some blame goes upon the political strategies of parties and how they felt they were working on public concerns.  The news media (public TV journalists) might have felt that they were out-of-step as well.

So you look at the device....Moma vor Ort.  Here is a group of local residents and they are asked how they feel, or what the chief complaint is.  Somewhere in the middle of this is the ZDF moderator, maybe a local journalist or two to explain how such-and-such problem developed, and it's special features, and then you have the political guys (differing parties) to talk about the resolutions or repairs required.

The problems with this?  I would go and suggest three fundamental problems:

1.  It's basically a morning TV show (Monday through Friday) and if you were looking at the audience....it's mostly housewives (who don't work) or retirees. 

2.  There's a fair amount of skepticism among younger Germans about public TV, and the suggestion of propaganda (whether deserved or not is your own personal debate).

3..  Finally, you come to this odd prospective....whatever problem they are focusing upon in this one community (say Dresden, or Jena, or Trier)....it's likely to be a problem that only revolves that one community, and the rest of the viewing 'nation' won't really care.

But here's the ZDF selling point....it's got to present some image that it cares about the general public, and that talking about a problem might help to avert serious political deficiencies (like the death spiral of the SPD Party presently).  Lets be honest here....both the CDU and SPD political operations are having image problems with the general public.