ABSTRACT
Reality in all its harshness and horror has always been turned into narratives in which fact becomes a kind of fiction, tales of faraway events and places, in short, "history." Television therefore is perceived by its audience primarily as a medium of entertainment, and all programming—including the news, documentaries, and political broadcasts—is ultimately judged for its entertainment value. The effect is that material about events in the real world has to compete, as entertainment, with the openly fictional material radiated incessantly which constitutes the collective daydreams of the masses. The area where the real and the dramatic merge most successfully is in the realm of sports. Commercials are drama that turns into reality; they are also reality presented as fantasy. The danger lies in the "false consciousness"—the fausse conscience in Sartre's sense—that television produces, which results in attitudes toward the real world that are unrealistic, illusionary, and even harmful.
