Living in Germany, you get a dose of this weekly. To some minor degree...commercial German TV will offer some public forums. To a great degree in their case....they will present a case (a family or a person) where here is a typical problem, then bring one, two or three guests....to lay out the normal pattern of issues. Members of the government? It's less likely....they tend to bring on experts of the topic or real people affected.
With public TV (ARD or ZDF)....they probably offer around five or six forums a week, and they run different formats. In their presentation, politicians always figure into the talk in some fashion....from the left, to the right.
For me, it's often more interesting to view the Twitter traffic as the public forum show goes on.....where people present opposing views or more 'truth-bullets'.
Where the public forum shows fail? Typically, it goes to three issues:
1. You try to bundle five topics into one single show....which often reaches a level of confusion.
2. You bring in too many politicians....who seem to be less knowledgeable than real people.
3. The moderator loses control, or is focused upon something that seems to be of marginal interest to the general audience viewing the show.
How many Germans watch these forum shows? It's never really shown on statistical numbers. I would suggest a majority of Germans....probably over 80-percent would prefer watching a non-public forum show. Among the 18-to-40 folks....I might suggest that most forum shows have fewer than 5-percent of society watching.
My wife (German in nature) will watch the first two minutes, and then reach some make-or-break decision....either it's a discussion item of interest or it's crap.
I'm not going to say that the forum shows really influence society or change opinions. They might educate you more on the amount of issues....or at least give you a slightly better understanding.
Use as a propaganda tool? Well....yeah, that is a issue to be dealt with. It's probably why the majority of Germans aren't turned on or feel a need to view such shows. The thought within ARD or ZDF? I'd suggest that they try hard to find the right moderators, and make the show more educational and informative. With the commercial folks? It's pieced together to just give you bits of information and you end up forming your opinion....without the sense of it being propaganda.
I will say this in final commentary.....on certain subjects....you probably need public forums.
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