The Media in Regards to Relationships

In our daily lives, the media (or popular culture) decides "the norm". Most general things represented by the media (on television, for example) is what people will perceive as being "typical" and "acceptable". Even though I come from a relatively conservative society (both cultural and religion wise), the way people perceive the media is no different. Just a couple of decades or so ago, relationships and dating prior to marriage were considered taboo here. Nowadays, with our generation, it has become a common phenomenon. It's almost the opposite; you rarely find people who don't date. I think this is a good example of how the media affects people's values, principles, and choices. It affects what we as a community perceive as being something common, or something being unorthodox. When you have a whole generation watching films and tv shows which always include some kind of love or sexual relationship regardless of the plot or the genre, you can't expect them not to accept it and pursue it as a natural sort of thing.

As for relationships specifically, they are portrayed in many different ways in film and on tv. They range from the strong long term ones, to the on and off rocky ones, to the flings, and to the nasty break ups. This variety only ensures that everyone can relate to these relationships somehow. As for whether the media plays as a "consultant" for people when it comes to relationships, I don't think it goes that far. At the end of the day, no one is going to rely on Ross and Rachel (for example) as role models for the choices they make in their own relationships.

Although some of us still maintain a conservative way of life, there is no doubt that the majority are affected by what they watch and view from the outside world (and i'm speaking specifically about the UAE society here), and this just comes to prove how powerful the media really is. It's amazing how vast the difference is when we compare our generation to those of our parents. I'm not saying the media is the only thing that contributed to the changes between us and them (there is also education, globalization, technology, etc) , but it is an important factor to acknowledge when we speak of these changes.