The Uses and Gratification Theory proposes that people actively seek out media to fulfill certain needs, and over time researchers have identified common reasons or gratifications that influence media selection, such as diversion, social interaction, and learning. The theory developed in three stages from 1944 to the present, with early work identifying gratifications for listening to soap operas and developing a formula for media selection, to later research grouping common uses of media and studying motivations for consuming different types of content.

1. Uses and Gratification
Theory

2. What is the Uses and
Gratification Theory?
Uses and Gratifications Theory is an approach to
understanding why people actively seek out
specific media outlets and content for
gratification purposes. The theory discusses how
users proactively search for media that will not
only meet a given need but enhance knowledge,
social interactions and diversion
There are 3 main stages of this ‘Uses and
Gratification Theory’,
Stage One...

3. Stage One
1944, Herta Herzog looked and the earliest forms of this theory,
classifying some of the reasons why different people chose specific
types of media. She interviewed a range of soap opera fans and could
identify 3 types of gratifications. The categories based on why
people listen to soap operas they were; Emotional, Wishful thinking
and Learning.
In 1954 Wilbur Schramm developed the fraction of selection, a
formula for determining which form of mass media an individual would
select. The formula helped to decide the amount of gratification an
individual would expect to gain from the medium over how much effort
they had to make to achieve gratification.
Abraham Maslow in 1970 said that the theory was an extension of the
‘Needs and Motivation. His argument suggested that people actively
looked to satisfy their needs based on hierarchy (the pyramid), the
bottom starts with biological/physical, security/safety and at the
top Social/belonging, ego/self-respect and self – actualization.

4. Stage Two
In 1972 Denis McQuail, Jay Blumler and Joseph Brown suggested that the uses
of different types of media could be grouped into 4 categories;
diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.
Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail like Herzog were studying different people
who watched different T.V programmes, however this time people who
watched political programmes. The motive is that they were able to
identify the groundwork for their research in 1972 and eventually the
Users and Gratifications Theory.

5. Stage Three
The most recent interest surrounding Uses and Gratification Theory is
the link between the reason why media is used and the achieved
gratification.
The media compete with other sources of need satisfaction. The needs
served by mass communication constitute but a segment of the wider range
of human needs, and the degree to which they can be adequately met
through mass media consumption certainly varies.