2. The uses and gratifications theory
focus on why people use particular
media rather than on the content.
Also the theory is about how people
seek out specific needs.
3. 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?”
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. The most common reasons people use media
is for…
• Information
• Personal Identity
• Integration and Social Interaction
• Entertainment
7. History of the 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 1954Wilbur 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.
8. Stage 2
• In 1969 Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail 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 McQuail, 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 McQuail, 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 the theory to be more predictive and
explanatory by connecting the needs, goals, benefits, and
consequences of media .
9. 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
