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When TV And Marriage Meet: TV’s Negative Impact On Romantic Relationships
The status of a romantic relationship could be in jeopardy if the couple or an individual in the relationship are frequent television watchers, according to a study from Albion College.
Credit: Wikipedia
The study, just released electronically and soon to be published in the September 2012 issue of Mass Communication and Society, found that the more an individual believed in television portrayals of romance, the less likely they were to be committed to their relationships. In August 2012, several of the most-watched television shows (Burn Notice, True Blood, The Big Bang Theory, and Two and a Half Men) featured romantic relationships prominently throughout their episodes. This research is especially important at helping individuals understand the impact that television viewing can have on their relationships.
The cast of Burn Notice. left to right: Sharon Gless as Madeline Westen, Bruce Campbell as Sam Axe, Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen, Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona Glenanne
“In this study I found that people who believe the unrealistic portrayals on TV are actually less committed to their spouses and think their alternatives to their spouse are relatively attractive,” Dr. Jeremy Osborn, the article’s author said. “My hope would be that people would read this article and take a look at their own relationships and the relationships of those around them. How realistic are your expectations for your partner and where did those expectations come from?”
Over 390 married couples participated in the study. The participants responded to questions about their satisfaction with their current romantic relationship, relationship expectations, relationship commitment, belief in television portrayals of romantic relationships, viewing frequency, and several others that focused on their spousal relationship. The research also discovered that the more an individual believed in the television romance, the higher people believed their relationship costs were. Relationship “costs” include a person’s loss of personal freedom, loss of time, or their partner’s unattractive qualities.
“We live in a society that perpetually immerses itself in media images from both TV and the web, but most people have no sense of the ways those images are impacting them,” Osborn said. “The rate of marriage failure in the U. S. is not dropping, and it is important for people to have a sense of what factors are leading to the failure of so many relationships.”
The article entitled, “When TV and Marriage Meet: A Social Exchange Analysis of the Impact of Television Viewing on Marital Satisfaction and Commitment,” was researched and written by Dr. Jeremy Osborn, Albion College.
About Mass Communication and Society
Mass Communication and Society is a scholarly journal focused on publishing articles from a wide variety of perspectives and approaches that advance mass communication theory, especially at the societal or macro-social level. It draws heavily from many other disciplines, including sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, law, and history.
Visit the journal’s webpage at www.tandfonline.com/HMCS
Visit the Routledge Communication Arena at www.communicationarena.com
http://www.tandfonline.com/hmcs
Contacts and sources:
Taylor & Francis
Get real; every post modern sitcom in existence with a white dude as the husband, is portrayed as a stupid, controlled, infantile, mildly or overtly racist and wussified inferior dufus with not enough brains to come in out of the rain on a sunny day. Sitcoms where the husband is black man is portrayed as in a marginally better light, fighting for his manhood, well deserving of a ‘win’ in that regard, manly, intelligent, albeit somewhat oppressed. Sitcoms are no longer ‘entertainment’. They are wholesale attacks on post modern males; and the American family. Oddly enough, in every case, the women are always portrayed as ‘strong, super-intelligent, witty, capable, leaders’ and eventual head of the family. Post modern sitcoms and most idiot box ‘entertainment’ is abject social engineering, myth, and indoctrination for the weak minded and easily manipulated.