Media, love and marriage: The relationship between social/mass media, liquid love and attitude toward marriage

The media, along with the content they distribute, involve particular nature and structures that can transform patterns of thinking, behaviors, and emotions. With the emergence of social media and the increasing rate of human interactions in the virtual world, human emotions (including love) have been re-defined in this new space. This issue has been addressed by renowned theorists such as Giddens and Bauman. The present survey investigated the relationship between social/mass media and (liquid) love and the consequences of this relationship as perceived by Shiraz University students. To gather data, 386 students were selected through stratified, probability sampling and completed the copies of a researcher-made questionnaire. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were confirmed through Cronbach’s alpha and face validity. Results revealed that there was a significant relationship between virtual social networks, domestic and foreign media, and liquid love. Furthermore, the variables of virtual social networks, domestic and foreign media, and liquid love showed a significant relationship to attitude toward marriage. In the structural equation model (processed in Amos), three variables, namely virtual social networks usage, domestic mass media usage, and foreign mass media usage, respectively, left the highest degrees of impact on liquid love. Moreover, three variables, namely domestic mass media usage, foreign mass media usage, and liquid love, significantly affected attitude toward marriage with coefficients of 0.199, -0.113, and -0.414, respectively.