Media messages consistently inundate the daily lives of Americans. According to the Nielsen Company (2010), the average American watches over 35.6 hours of television per week -- almost as much as the typical work week. With the amount of time spent watching television, it is only natural that viewers might begin to perceive the messages they view as reality. While many different messages are presented in media programming, of particular importance are the messages presented about marriage and romantic relationships. Television and film are wrought with depictions of marriage and relationships, both healthy and unhealthy.
Research has shown that young adult viewers who watch romance-specific programming have higher intentions of marrying (Segrin & Nabi, 2002) and are more likely to believe in the existence of pre-destined relationships (Holmes, 2007). In addition, Ferris, Smith, Greenberg, and Smith (2007) found that watching reality dating shows has been shown to affect viewer’s perceptions of dating behaviors and Galician (2000) noted several relationship myths gleaned from media programming, including “love at first sight” and that all couples should be able to read each other’s minds. If young adults are looking to media programming to form their beliefs about marriage, conceivably before they would enter into their first marriage, it is important to study the relationship themes in popular programming among that demographic, such as the television drama Mad Men.