By Ashley Joseph

1. By Ashley Joseph

2. During the 1960s it became apparent that
audiences made choices about how and when they
consumed media texts. Far from being a passive
mass, audiences were made up of individuals who
actively consumes texts for different reasons and in
different ways:
Diversion – Escape from everyday problems and
routine.
Personal Relationships – Using the media for
emotional and other interaction.
Personal Identity – Constructing their own identity
from characters in media texts, and learning
behaviour and values.
Surveillance – Information gathering, e.g.
educational programmes weather reports, financial
news, holiday bargains.

3. Richard Kilborn suggests the following common
reasons for watching soaps:
• A regular routine and a reward for work
• Social and personal interaction
• Fulfilling individual needs(escapism)
• Identification with characters
• Focus on Topical, moral and social issues
• Appreciation of genre conventions

4. Uses and gratification can be a bit simplistic. It
can be very hard to explain why we like
something.
A second problem is that we choose the media
that we consume from what is available, the
advert you watch on the television may be
extremely sexist. We have no control over what
ads are shown on any one channel.