Is TV's geographic bias to blame for America's polarization?

Brookings.edu

The Brookings Institute's Jenny Schuetz has done research to find out whether television has contributed to the divide between rural and urban America. "Why is the geography of TV so poorly aligned with where people live?" she writes. "(As well as unreflective of gender, race, and physical appearance, of course.) Entertainment is a business, and the producers of TV shows presumably want to maximize their potential audience. The results of this analysis raise several questions for further thought. Why do writers and producers invent fictional locations for small towns, when they use real metro areas for urban and suburban shows? Are they not acquainted with small towns, are the real ones not telegenic enough, or are there privacy concerns with small places? Why is the South so underrepresented among scripted shows? The region is home to 37 percent of nation’s people, most of whom don’t live in the Baltimore-DC corridor, yet barely registers among scripted shows. Reality TV has embraced all corners of the South, indicating demand for shows set in these locations."