Uses and gratifications

Uses and gratifications, is not a single approach but a body of approaches developed out of empirical studies beginning in the mid 20th century. It is one of many audience theories recognised in the media.

The basic theme of uses and gratifications is the idea that people use the media to get specific gratifications. This is in opposition to the Hypodermic Syringe model that claims consumers have no say in how the media influences them. The main idea of the Uses and Gratifications model is that people are not helpless victims of all powerful media, but use media to fulfill their various needs. These needs serve as motivations for using media.

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

# Escape — Some media texts allow the user to escape from reality. For example, video games.
#Social interaction — People create personal relationships with the characters in a media text. Potentially this could become dangerous if people do not question the reality of such texts. It also creates a common ground for conversation in people's every day lives.
#identify — People often identify a part of themselves in a media text, either through character or circumstance. For example, hair style trends stemming from a magazine feature. This can go a long way in people's ideologies.
#Inform and educate — the audience gain an understanding of the world around them by consuming a media text, for example print and broadcast news.
#Entertain - consumed purely for entertainment purposes, meaning that text need not have any other gratifications.

The uses and gratifications theory of Blumler and Katz (1974) and the group studies in social psychology (Ridings and Gefen 2004; Thibaut and Kelley 1959) provide such major motivations for individuals to join virtual communities as the need for social integration (belong and be affiliated), the need for help in achieving goals (e.g. by obtaining information), the need for realizing economic exchanges, the need for status enhancement (by impressing and manipulating others), and the need for entertainment [Iryna Pentina, Victor R. Prybutok, Xiaoni Zhang (2008). The Role of Virtual Communities as Shopping Reference Groups. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research.]

References

* Blumler, J. and E. Katz, The Uses of Mass Communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1974.
* Ridings, C. M., Gefen, D. and Arinze, B., "Some antecedents and effects of trust in virtual communities," The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 11, No. (3/4): 271-295
* Thibaut, J.W. and H.H. Kelley, The Social Psychology of Groups. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1959.

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