The University of Erfurt put out a study today. It's a curious piece that they've been on....for the past couple of weeks.
What they say is that news consumers are just about maxed out on Corona-related news.
'Flat emotional response' is the key term used, and I think most everyone in Germany would grin and readily agree with that comment.
How they did the study? They basically called up around 1,000 Germans....once in March....once in April, and just asked some in-depth questions. I'll admit....it's probably not a five-star study, and if you'd done this a third month (end of May)....probably 99-percent of people would have said as 'flat' as you can imagine it.
At some point in mid-to-late March....the 8:00 PM national news on ARD (public TV) went 'turbo' and they would quickly move on with days with 'EXTRA', which was another 15-minute full-up Coronavirus only news program. Toss in public forums going on at least five times a week on ZDF or ARD, and the news off newspapers....you were getting 300-percent of what you really needed.
Even my German wife called it too-much around the very end of April and began to mute the TV or flip to some wildlife channel with elephants lounging around.
But I would go and suggest that virtually of these special events....reach a peak. It's the same with the Greta-business and Fridays-for-whatever....it's probably reached a peak. The chatter of the German soccer league in serious financial trouble.....that probably has reached a peak as well. The doom over Trump....that probably peaked out back in February.
People are getting to the point where there is simply too much news.
No comments:
Post a Comment