Uses and Gratifications Theory

The uses and gratifications theory places much emphasis on the active role of the audience in making choices and being goal-directed in its media-use behavior.

The experience and effects of media depend, in part, on the uses one is putting those media to and the gratifications one is receiving from them.

For example, the experience of watching a horror film will be very different for someone who is experiencing much empathy with the victim than for someone who is being only superficially entertained by the suspense of the plot.

Watching CNN Headline News or surfing Internet news sites may be a very different experience for someone trying to be entertained than for someone trying to be seriously informed on the details of a political candidate's positions.

 This statement is made in regard to four assumptions made by the uses and gratification theory:

1. The audience is active,
2. The media are used to meet needs,
3. Other factors nay be involved, and
4. Media compete for our attention.

Attudinal theorists Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch maintained that people have certain psychological needs, like that of comfort, social interaction, activity and so on.  They continued that different needs are associated with individual personalities, stages of maturation, background and social roles.


Uses and gratifications theory takes a more humanistic approach to looking at media use.  Blumler and Katz believe that there is not merely one way that the populace uses media.  Instead, they believe there are as many reasons for using the media, as there are media users.  According to the theory, media consumers have a free will to decide how they will use the media and how it will effect them.  Blumler and Katz values are clearly seen by the fact that they believe that media consumers can choose the influence media has on them as well as the idea that users choose media alternatives merely as a means to and end.  Uses and gratification is the optimist’s view of the media.  The theory takes out the possibility that the media can have an unconscious influence over our lives and how we view the world.  The idea that we simply use the media to satisfy a given need does not seem to fully recognize the power of the media in today’s society.