Sunday, 4 March 2012

Media's New Role: The Love Constructor


All kinds of media regarding love and passion between couples affect us whether we are conscious of it or not. Movies such as “Titanics” made us believe in eternal love even after death. Advertisement using love story easily touched us. Thus, media can be used as an effective weapon to boost fertility rate or marriage rate. 
This issue is significantly important as the chances of getting married are slimmer and slimmer in developed and developing countries. In China, media is used to conduct many match-making  programmes to enhance marriage rate in the country. This is a typical example of mass media in television programmes.  Media programmes do arouse people’s wishes to get in a relationship as Cacioppo, Fowler, and Christakis (2009) stand that loneliness spread through social network.
Besides mass media, new media can also facilitate the relationship between couples in order to build love in society more sufficiently. This is because interactivity and accessibility of new media has hiked after the invention of internet. For example, speed dating is much more acceptable by those who want fast result. Thus, internet match making can also be expanded to help those having difficulties in meeting face-to-face. Research suggests that Internet relationships are just as intimate as face-to-face and even closer in some cases (Bargh, McKenna, &Fitzsimons, 2002).
In addition to that, media can be used to shape people expectation towards marriage. This method is supported by research conducted by Straub (2004),concluding that viewing of romantic genre programming was positively associated with idealistic expectations about marriage. So, unrealistic expectation towards marriage can be minimized by portraying the image of realistic ideal marriage. Indirectly, increases successful marriage will subsequently provoke increases in birth rate, which is one of the concern in Singapore.
(Video clip reporting on Singapore's fertility rate)
In a nut shell, media is a useful tool that can be used to build love between couples.


References:
Bargh, J.A., McKenna, K.Y.A., & Fitzsimons, G.M. (2002). Can you see the real me? Activation and expression of the "true self" on the Internet. Journal of Social Issues, 58, 33-48.

1 comment:

  1. It is an interesting study on the relationship between media and the concept of love, and the different ways "love" is being portrayed in the media. While the Thai commercials that you selected were interesting to watch, you could have provided a few lines to introduce these video clips. Without any prior introduction to the clips, including these clips in between your paragraphs could be distracting to the readers. Also, readers may not really understand why you pointed out that "the chances of getting married are slimmer and slimmer in developed and developing countries" without further explanation given.

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