Uses and gratifications theory

Uses and gratifications, is not a single approach but a body of approaches to that developed out of many varied empirical studies, beginning in the mid 20th century.

The basic theme of uses and gratifications is the idea that people use the media to get specific gratifications.

The basic tenet of Uses and Gratifications (called UG for short) is that people are not helpless victims of all powerful media, but use media to fulfill their various needs. These needs serve as motivations (gratifications sought) for using media. Gratifications obtained should correspond with gratifications sought for the media to be able to meet the needs of the users.

Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz devised their uses and gratifications model in 1974 to highlight four areas of gratification in media texts for audiences. These include:

1. Diversion — a media text which provides an escape from reality. When a media text temporarily partially covers one's senses. For example playing a video game.
2. Personal relationships — People create personal relationships with the characters in a media text, they start to feel they know them. This can become dangerous if people start to trust them as well, for example if one trusted a news reporter too much they may take everything they say at face value and not question it, this trust could then be abused.
3. Personal identity — When a person creates part of their own identity from things they find attractive in people from media texts, for example someone may have a haircut because they liked the look of a similar one in a magazine. This can go a long way in shaping people and people's ideas of values, norms, ideologies and fashions.
4. Surveillance — the audience gain an understanding of the world around them by consuming a media text, for example print and broadcast news.