The uses and gratifications approach seeks to understand why people actively engage with specific media to fulfill certain needs. It was developed by Blumer and Katz in 1974 and proposes that people use media in four ways: for surveillance to gain information, for personal relationships to connect with others, for personal identity by relating to characters and content, and for diversion as a way to escape from problems.

1. Uses and gratifications

2. What is it?
• An approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out
specific media to satisfy specific needs.
Devised by Blumer and Katz in 1974 which looks at the different ways
people look at media. They state people can use media in 4 different
ways:
Surveillance: Gaining information about the world
Personal relationships: Using the media for social and personal
interaction
Personal identity: Finding parts of yourself within text and basing
identity on text
Diversion: Escape from everyday life and problems

3. Surveillance
Giving information
about the world

4. Personal
relationships
Things you can talk
about with your friends
at school, with the
same interests

5. Personal
identity
Appeals to people to
like these specific bands
and artists

6. Diversion
Gives people an escape
from reality when
reading these

7. Diversion
Gives people an escape
from reality when
reading these