The document summarizes the history and key aspects of uses and gratifications theory. It explains that in the 1960s, media theorists recognized that audiences were active rather than passive in their media consumption. In 1948, Lasswell proposed four main functions of media texts: surveillance, correlation, entertainment, and cultural transmission. Katz and Blumler later expanded on this in 1974 to include personal relationships, personal identity, and diversion as reasons individuals consume media. Finally, the document notes that uses and gratifications theory focuses on understanding what audiences want from media texts and how they use and are affected by them.

1. Abbey Cotterill

2. History of uses and gratifications
 In the 1960’s, it became increasingly aware to media theorists that audiences made
choices about what they did when consuming different texts. Instead of being a passive
mass, audiences were made up of passive individuals who were active and consumed
texts for a range of reasons and in different ways.

In 1948 Lasswell spoke out and suggested that media texts had four main functions for
individuals and society which were:
1.
Surveillance
2.
Correlation
3.
Entertainment
4.
Cultural Transmission

Renown researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded Lasswell’s theory and published their
own version in 1974. This stated that individuals might consume a text for the following
purposes:
1.
Surveillance- information which could be useful for living such as weather reports and
news reports.
2.
Personal Relationships- using the media for emotional and other types of interaction.
For example, using soap operas to represent different types of family life.
3.
Personal Identity- finding yourself in similar situations as the text as well as learning
values and behaviour from texts.
4.
Diversion- the texts act as a form of escapism from everyday problems.

3. What it focuses on
 The Uses and Gratification theory focuses on
questions such as:
1. What do the audience want from the text and how to
target that ‘want’?
2. What does the audience do with a media
product/text?
3. What is the overall effect of the media product/text
on the audience?