Brainwashing by TV?

Does TV influence us? There are truckloads of variables to consider in answering this question: How much TV do we watch, what is the content of what we watch, what do we give up to watch it, who is there or not there to discuss its programs and themes. It's like asking Do friends influence us? It depends.

Does taking in a hefty diet of Fox News and conservative talk radio shows impact how we view the world? There are lots of variables that enter here, so it's not a yes or no kind of question. But the question takes an interesting twist when it's seen through the eyes of a loving daughter worried about her father's personality changing into an hardline conservative who she barely recognizes.

Amazon Prime's documentary The Brainwashing of My Dad   made me think that the questions the filmmaker explores may end up in the same heap of questions that have evidence to support opposite views, for example about video games or violent TV programs and their impact on people. 

There are truckloads of data to support the pro and con of media and its impact on people, but on the Fox News and Radio Talk show influence explored in the documentary, I side with the filmmaker, remembering Dr. George Gerbner's Mean World Theory (Cultivation Theory) and the communication research that he he pioneered. 

Outside of the filmmaker's experience and the interviews of her subjects, what emerged as equally important is the evidence she presents about the history of eliminating the Fairness Doctrine and the funding of conservative media outlets and think-tanks that undergird the media landscape that TV and radio currently occupy. Still many questions, such as what similar inroads have been made to make fear the driving force on the Internet and the business models currently in place there?