Family is a community of people, which is the basic form of an individual and social life. The condition of the whole society depends on the condition of family and on the way it fulfi ls its fundamental functions. That is why family, being in the centre of the social life, is treated by the state as a subject of special care. The most important within this scope are of course the regulations of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, the Family and Guardianship Code and the Penal Code. Being a part of society, family, the same as society, is not indifferent to diverse external stimuli that exert an infl uence on it. In our times, what has an enormous impact on family is the mass media, which has become an intrinsic element of our life. The picture of family can be depicted best on the example of the audio-visual media, which is the most attractive in reception yet exerts the strongest impact on its audience. But the ideas conveyed by the audio-visual media distort the picture of family, lead to the reversal of social roles and parental conduct, propagate partnership, exaggerate social pathologies and promote a hedonistic and consumerist stance. Moreover, one can notice a kind of „worship” of wrongly understand tolerance, interpreted as toleration towards marital infi delity, abortion and the lack of responsibility for the upbringing of the young generation. The mass media propagates its vision of marital and family life as well as behaviour in family, which are based on the current cultural and social trends adjusted to the expectations of a spectator – the consumer of audio-visual programmes.