[kahljorn]

"but the parts of the brain related to real emotional response aren't located in or subject to the frontal lobes, are they?

Maybe we see images on TV like we would in a mirror."

Uh? seriously, this is retarded preechr. it's not like when we see things in real life it's immediately translated into emotions. It goes through the same process. This is like the last thing I'd expect you to say... an image is an image is an image and the brain pretty much interprets them similarly.
Would you be less emotional if your wife or parents were vicously murdered on videotape than if you saw it with a pair of binoculars? OR MAYBE THE BINOCULARS REWIRE THE BRAIN OR SOMETHING LIKE THE TELEVISION DOES.
if anything, again, the only difference is immersion in the actual situation. The only thing that would probably change is feelings of panic and fight and flight mechanisms because you're actually in danger.
Some people never even see or have evidence that their family or friends died, yet they are sad about it. It's not directly seeing or being present that makes emotional attachments, it's the act itself, and the consequences of the act. All being directly involved does is subject you to the rigors of actually directly responding to the situation and being subject. But that doesn't mean that if you aren't immersed into that situation that you don't feel anything about it.
You might say, "WELL EXACTLY ITS MORE ABSTRACT BECAUSE YOU"RE NOT DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN IT." For one that's stating the obvious! For two almost every situation in which compassion has a chance to be expressed is going to be an abstract situation, such as a friend's wife being murdered. You're not actually in that situation. You have nothing to do with it. Technically your input and compassion is abstract. So how is it any different than television? And that is with a FRIEND who you actually have a personal relationship with -- it's StilL "abstract compassion". What if it's a stranger like 99.9999% of the people on television are going to be? Isn't that EXTRA abstract? So, again, how is it any more or less abstract or more or less emotionally attaching or whatever in real life than on television?

Back to Preechr. Here's a better question: If your wife or parents were murdered in the same room/house as you but you could only see it in a mirror or on a television would you not feel any emotional attachment? Might you not feel immersed into the situation and like you might die next, as well, probably triggering fight or flight? lol. seriously. this is dumb. Do security guards lack responses to crimes because they are watching them on closed circuit cameras? CAN BLIND PEOPLE NOT FEEL EMOTIONS? Maybe SOUNDS from television go through a separate brain process than real life sounds right? THE LACK OF SMELL MIGHT HAVE SOME EFFECT?
Images in real life are basically the same as images on the television. It's not like they are that much more real to the brain. Aren't there entire philosophies on how what we see/sense isn't a direct representation of reality, anyway, and that the brain interprets them after seeing it, usually by basing it on previous experiences etc. That the IMAgeS we see are just reflections of light and little else, and the brain has to interpret these beams of light?

"Our brains were not built to understand TV. "

I think that this would indicate that the brain treats TV similarly as images in real life, if it isn't designed to tell them apart.