Theories in Communication & Media Studies (Lec-05)

   Theories in Communication &Media Studies (Lec-05) Uses and gratification theory Uses and gratification theory (UGT) is an audience-ce...

  

Theories in Communication &Media Studies (Lec-05)

Uses and gratification theory

Uses and gratification theory (UGT) is an audience-centered approach that focuses on what
people do with media, as opposed to what media does to people.

Uses and Gratification Theory:

Uses and gratification theory seeks to understand why people seek out the media that they do and what they use it for. UGT differs from other media effect theories in that it assumes that individuals have power over their media usage, rather than positioning individuals as passive consumers of media. (UGT) explores how individuals deliberately seek out media to fulfill certain needs or goals such as entertainment, relaxation, or socializing.

History:

Uses and gratification theory builds off of a history of communication theories and research. Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail laid the primary groundwork in 1969 with their categorization of audience motivations for watching political programs during the time of the 1964 election in the United Kingdom.

This eventually led them to develop UGT later on with their colleagues. Its beginnings lie in researchers’ studies of radio listeners in the 1940s. Other research at that time looked into children’s comics and the absence of newspapers during a newspaper strike. USG history can be described as falling within a series of stages:

Stage 1

In 1944 Herta Hertzog interviewed people who listened to soap operas and determined that they sought three different types of gratification from this form of entertainment. These three types of gratification were emotional, wishful thinking, and learning.

In 1954 Wilbur Schramm developed a formula for determining which media an individual might select all contribute to the foundation for modern developments of this theory. This formula took into account the amount of gratification an individual expected to get out of a certain form of media and the amount of effort the individual would have to exert to get it.

In 1970 Abraham Maslow posited that USG was an extension of the needs he had himself
organized into his Hierarchy of Needs.

Stage 2

In 1969 Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail studied the United Kingdom 1964 election and
categorized people’s motives for watching certain political programs on television. These
audience motivations formed the foundation for their research in 1972 and led to USG later on.

In 1972, Jay Blumler, Joseph Brown and Denis Mcquail said that there are four uses of media:

1.  Diversion
2.  Personal relationships
3.  Personal identity
4.  And Surveillance

In 1973-74 Blumler, Brown, and McQuail were joined by colleagues Michael Gurevitch,
Hadassah Haas, and Elihu Katz. The six conducted collaborative research on how people viewed mass media.

There are several needs and gratification for people they are categorized into five categories.

1.  Cognitive needs
2.  Affective needs
3. Personal Integrative needs
4.  Social Integrative needs
5.  Tension free needs

Cognitive needs:

People use media for acquiring knowledge, information etc., Among the audience some of them have intellectual needs to acquire knowledge this is not common to all only certain people have their need, each person have a different need for e.g. quiz programs on TV, in order to acquire knowledge and information you will watch news to satisfy the need, search engines in the internet, they make use of these to gain more knowledge. Particularly for the internet search engine they can browse for any topic under the run with no time restriction.

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Affective needs:

It includes all kinds of emotions, pleasure and other moods of the people. People use media like television to satisfy their emotional needs The best example is people watch serials and if there is any emotional or sad scene means people used to cry.

Personal Integrative needs:

This is the self-esteem need. People use media to reassure their status, gain credibility and
stabilize. so people watch TV and assure themselves that they have a status in society for e.g. people get to improve their status by watching media advertisements like jewelry ad, furniture’s ad and buy products, so the people change their life style and media helps them to do so.

Social Integrative needs:

It encompasses the need to socialize with family, friends and relations in the society. For social interaction now a day’s people do not seem to have social gathering in weekend, instead they do such social interaction using media like the social networking sites like my space, facebook, orkut etc to satisfy their need.

Another example is you may not watch the particular serial regularly but because your friend watching, you also start watching so that you have common topics for discussion.

Tension free needs:

People sometimes use the media as a means of escapism and to relieve from tension
For e.g. People tend to relax watching TV, listening to radio and for satisfying their need for
entertainment there by relaxing from all the tension, people watch films, films on TV etc

Stage 3

It is the stage where researchers are studying the uses and gratification theory in the modern times. This theory helps you to learn about your connection with the technology today. Research on the mobile phone has shown that you get many gratifications from the phone.

These are as follows:

1.  Affection or social ability
2.  Entertainment
3.  And mobility, etc.

Uses and gratification theory researchers are also exploring the animated news and
entertainment. Their motive is to learn the role media technologies play to attract the attention of the people.

Criticism of Uses and gratification theory:

1.  The uses and gratification theory does not consider the power of media
2.  More audience-centered
3.  Positive point of the uses and gratification theory is it focuses attention on individuals in the mass communication process.
4.  Uses and gratification theory is very individualistic
5.  Little attention paid to media content
6.  It says media are only functional to people.

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