TV: Valuable voyeurism?
Authors: B. Lichterman
Journal: BMJ (2001)

In Russia some trauma doctors say watching television is helping them to predict hospital admisssions

  A few years ago a group of Austrian students was visiting the Institute of Foreign Languages in Nizhnii Novgorod, Russia, on an exchange programme. Contrary to their expectations, life there seemed peaceful. “Why is there such a discrepancy between what we have learnt from the mass media and what we discovered in reality?” they asked a local professor. “Daily routine is boring and uneventful, whereas mass media needs sensations,” he replied.

The public's need for striking sensations is satisfied in Russia by several regular television programmes dealing with murders, suicides, and car crashes. This genre is named chernoukha (from the adjective chernyi, meaning “black”). The first such programme—which filmed in close up the dead victims of fires, crime, and car crashes—was 600 Sekund (“600 seconds”), launched by Alexander Nevzorov a decade ago. Its popularity encouraged others to follow suit. Nowadays most Russian television channels screen such programmes on a daily basis—Kriminal'naya Rossija (“Criminal Russia”) on NTV and Sluchainyi Svidetel' (“An Accidental Witness”) on RenTV, for example. But the top place is surely occupied by Dorozhnyi Patrul' (“The Road Patrol”) on TV6, broadcast four times a day on weekdays and three times a day at weekends.

As its name suggests, Dorozhnyi Patrul' focuses mainly on car crashes, but it also features fires, murders, and domestic assaults. Its crew, tipped off by the police or even by viewers, travels the streets of Moscow filming the disasters that strike the city every day. In an impartial tone, the programme presents a series of short but graphic reports, interrupted by advertising and statistical tables showing how many people have died in car crashes or in fires, how many have committed suicide or have been murdered, and how many apartments have been robbed in the preceding 24 hours in Moscow. Its producer has claimed that, in informing people about the dangers of drinking and driving or drug misuse, the programme has a public health function and is far more effective than handing out government information leaflets.

But I could not find any kind of clear health message in Dorozhnyi Patrul'. Its main purpose seems neither to inform people about the dangers of drinking and driving nor to make them feel that, while terrible things are happening elsewhere, their own lives are not so bad. It seems only to be making money out of pure voyeurism. During the 15 minute programme there are shots of a luxury car carrying advertisements for a manufacturer of modern kitchen equipment (the general sponsor of the programme) and an automobile repair company (another sponsor).

However, a junior colleague of mine, Marina Rasteryaeva, from the burns department at the Traumatology Institute in Nizhnii, thinks that Dorozhnyi Patrul' and similar programmes—Polden' Trudnogo Dnja (literally “A Midday of a Hard Day”) and Vecher Trudnogo Dnja (“An Evening of a Hard Day,” a reference to the Beatles song)— may have some clinical impact. “Many victims of fire and car accidents will be transferred to my institution. So, by watching these programmes, we can often predict the number of future hospital admissions and their severity,” Dr Rasteryaeva said. No wonder that the television is always switched on in the doctors' room at her department. 

There are few genuine health oriented programmes on Russian television, and those that are—such as Zdorov'e (“Health”) on the First Channel (ORT) and 21-yi Kabinet (“Ward N21”) on Moskovia Channel—are shown during the day at weekends and do not get especially high viewing figures. However, when an American series on first aid was shown on Russian television it became popular even among doctors. One of my colleagues confessed that she learnt the right way to shift a patient on to a stretcher by watching it.

While I was writing this article, a series of terrorist attacks occurred in the south of Russia. Dozens are dead, hundreds are wounded. The news bulletin has shown a wounded woman, her blood dripping on asphalt to form a small pool. There is no reason to watch Dorozhnyi Patrul' today. It would be less spectacular.