Paper short abstract:

The globalized reality TV show Married at first sight offers an unprecedented way to get married : couples meet in front the altar. This paper will analyze how the people engaged in producing this show in Poland assert different tastes and values based on different repertoires in the purpose to build true and authentic love stories for the viewers to watch.

Paper long abstract:

The reality TV show Married at First Sight deflects the arranged marriage and offers an unprecedented way to get married : couples are formed based on “scientific” expertise and meet in front of the altar hoping to find "true love". Distributed by a German company, this format has been exported since 2013 to thirty territories like in Poland. This paper will propose to analyze the conditions of the production of "authentic true love stories" by the producers of the polish version but also by the participants (brides and grooms). Based on a multi-scale ethnography of the transnational circulation of this format, we will analyze the mediations at work for its adaptation, which aim to produce a "watchable" content that viewers must believe to be "real", "authentic" instead of "fake" or "staged". We will analyze how the binding framework of the format necessarily condition the love stories which will appear on screen, but we will also pay a particurlar attention on analyzing the mediations which appear when it comes to adapt the format for the political and cultural polish context. Adapting the TV format Married at first sight will appear as an exchange shaped by a tension between standardization and differentiation, in which people engaged in the production of the polish version assert different tastes and values based on different repertoires and with different purposes.