Tactical Attention in a Permacrisis: TV News Exposure During Wartime in Israel

How does collective attention to televised crisis news evolve across a prolonged armed conflict? Drawing on media system dependency and mood management theories, this study analyzes 902 days of Israeli television ratings from September 2023 to February 2026, together with an externally verified log of 53 conflict-related events occurring between October 2023 and October 2025. Successive shocks produced audience surges comparable in magnitude to those of the conflict's earliest weeks, yet elevated viewing generally normalized more quickly: approximately 77 days after the October 7, 2023, attack, compared with substantially shorter periods later. This dissociation between preserved amplitude and faster normalization is termed tactical attention. The pattern varied with event structure, as sustained escalation and recurring triggers prolonged some attention waves. The findings bridge issue-attention theory and news avoidance research, with implications for television coverage during prolonged crises.