Uses and gratifications The uses and gratifications theory

Uses and gratifications

The uses and gratifications theory focus on why people use particular media rather than on the content. Also theory is about how people seek out specific needs.

Uses and gratification is also known as the UGT. The driving question for UGT is “Why do people use media and what do they use it for? ”

The UGT say… • The audience has power over their media consumption. • The audience are responsible for choosing media to meet their desire and needs to achieve gratification. (Gratification Satisfaction)

The UGT assumptions: • The audience is on the go and its media use is goal oriented. • Gratification and media choice lies with the audience member. • The media compete with other sources of satisfaction • People have enough self-awareness of their media use, interests, and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate representation of that use. • Value judgements of media content can only be evaluated by the audience.

The most common reasons people use media is for… • Information • Personal Identity • Integration and Social Interaction • Entertainment

History of theory Stage 1 • In 1944 Herta Herzog began to look at the earliest forms of UGT. Herzog interviewed soap opera fans and was able to identify three gratifications categories, based on why people listened to soap operas, were emotional, wishful thinking, and learning. • In 1970 Abraham Maslow suggested that uses and gratifications theory was an extension of the Needs and Motivation Theory. He thought this because people actively looked to satisfy their needs based on a hierarchy. Below are Maslow's Hierarchy of. • In 1954 Wilbur Schramm developed the fraction of selection, which is a formula for determining which form of mass media an individual would select. The formula helped to decide the amount of gratification a person would expect to gain from the medium over how much effort they had to make to achieve gratification.

Stage 2 • In 1969 Jay Blumler and Denis Mc. Quail studied the 1964 election in the United Kingdom by examining people's motives for watching certain political programs on television. By categorising the audience's motives for viewing a certain program, they aimed to classify viewers according to their needs in order to understand any potential mass-media effects. • In 1972 Denis Mc. Quail, Jay Blumler and Joseph Brown suggested that the uses of different types of media could be grouped into categories-diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. • In 1973 -74 Mc. Quail, Blumler and Brown were joined by Elihu Katz, Michael Gurevitch and Hadassah Haas, in their media exploration. Stage 3 • The most recent interest and recent research links between the reason why media is used and the achieved gratification. UGT researchers are developing theory to be more predictive and explanatory by connecting the needs, goals, benefits, and consequences of media.

An example of technology which have many uses and gratifications is mobile phones. They include: • Affection/sociability • Entertainment • Instrumentality • Psychological reassurance • Fashion/status • Mobility • Immediate access