After
careful consideration of several studies, I have figure out the topic for this
assignment. Inter-connectivity or underlying pattern between media and love is
my choice of discussion. I believe love is the essential element of life and
everybody carries a certain degree of enthusiasm towards this topic. In brief,
love is an extra complicated topic as humans are complicated. So, I will ignore
the complications of love and focus my work on correlations between media and
love. Besides the relationship between the two subjects, I am also looking at
how we can make use of media to build more intimate relationship between
couples.
Mass media is the type of media that can
deliver message to the public by broadcast television, radio, newspaper and
magazines. On the other hand, niche media is a much more limited scope media
but allows interaction between producer and audience, and even between the
audiences through the internet. In mass media, love that is presented influence
depends a lot on producers’ subjectivity or experiences. Corresponding to mass
media, audiences also convey their love through niche media either in words,
audio or video form. Thus, I have recognised the general pattern of couples’
relationships currently and also in the past by studying the media presentation
of couples. Besides, Linke (2011) states that mediatisation occurs inevitably reconstructing our
relationships.
Besides that, media is not a passive body but
reacts actively by conduct its power of affection through its inescapable
proliferation to all classes of society. Media has
accelerates the evolution of couples relationship from a more secretive and
conservative pattern to a relatively modern pattern. Thus, traditional concept of marriage is losing
its dominance. On the
other hand, the individual expectation towards a life partner has been shaped
by media. By portraying an ideal partner as good-looking, high socio-economic status
and caring characteristic, audience expects their spouse to meet certain
criteria. This is especially significant in an information flourish country
like Singapore where public receives images and description of a possible ideal
partner. Thus, it is more likely that they are having difficulties in choosing
a life partner as their expectations become higher.
Though complication exists in constructing a
love relationship, the applications of media should be utilized to its fullness
to navigate this phenomenon. We can manipulate media as a tool to build closer
relationships between either people or couples. As Leah A. Lievrouw (2004)
stands that new media is a product of political interests, so the real
political interests will shape media’s direction. In this case, fertility rate
is one of the common political concern of Singapore reputable politician, Lee
Kuan Yew. Although Lee Kuan Yew has mention before in his written book that
Singapore’s media is independent of government’s control, I would like to
propose that fertility issue or couple issue is more suitable to consider in
social context rather than politic context. This is because as status or
economic achievement of women becomes higher, affecting their chances of
getting married as they are more independent. Hence, promoting closer
relationships through media is necessary to advance this politic concern.
(Picture showing homosexuality)
Besides these, we should also concern about the
love of minority group, such as homosexual relationship. There are a lot of
movies portraying homosexual relationship; some of them are “BrokebackMountain”, “Bent” and “Boys don’t cry”.Despite the fiction part, there are a
lot of talk shows and articles reporting on real individual cases. Anderson, Fakhfakh, and Kondylis (1999) puts in although the
purpose of talk show is actually making profit for the producer, this kind of
shows has actually provided a platform for the homosexual to voice out their
homosexual relationship. Public has gain a chance to know more about homosexual
relationship and hence gradually accepting homosexual relationship is only
another kind of love and not a disease. Thus,
media unquestionably affects the public attitudes towards homosexual relationships
either in a positive way or negative way.
(Picture showing the movie "Boys Don't Cry" , a dramatization of a real life story)
In conclusion, the flow of information between
media and public is not one way and thus creating new perception of love. Although
the perception of love is subjective to individual, it is clear that media is
an integrated part of relationships. The
love that media portrays is more likely to influence the public without
conscious effort especially the youth which are vulnerable to media’s effect.
