This document discusses the history and development of uses and gratifications theory. It outlines several early studies from the 1940s-1950s that helped establish the theory's key assumptions and qualitative approach. These include examining what needs media use fulfills for audiences. The document also describes different typologies researchers have proposed to categorize audiences' motivations and gratifications, including unifunctional, bifunctional, and more recent multifunctional frameworks. It notes a lack of understanding the relationships between gratifications and underlying human needs. Overall, the document provides a concise overview of the origins and evolution of uses and gratifications research.

1. Elihu Katz, Jay G. Blumler, and Michael Gurevitch

2.  An Israeli-American sociologist.
 He has spent most of a lifetime in research on
communication, his main focus being the interplay
between media, conversation, opinion, and action in the
public sphere.
 He is a Trustee Professor at the Annenberg School for
Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Emeritus
Professor of Sociology and Communication at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and Scientific Director of the
Guttman Institute of Applied Social Research.
 He is winner of the UNESCO-Canada McLuhan Prize, the
Burda Prize (in media research), and other distinctions,
including honorary degrees from the Universities of
Ghent, Quebec in Montreal, Paris and Haifa.
 He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences.

3.  Notable Works
 (with Paul F. Lazarsfeld) Personal Influence: The Part
Played by People in the Flow of Mass
Communications, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1956
 (with Jay G. Blumler), eds. The Uses of Mass
Communications: Current Perspectives on
Gratification Research, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1974.
 (with Michael Gurevitch) The Secularization of
Leisure: Culture and Communication in Israel,
London: Faber and Faber, and Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1976.

4.  Social Research on Broadcasting: Proposals for
Further Development, London: BBC, 1977.
 (with Daniel Dayan) Media Events: The Live
Broadcasting of History, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1992
 (with ItzhakYanovitzky) eds. Readings in Leisure,
Culture and Communication 2 vols.). Ramat Aviv:
Open University Press, 1999.

5.  He is an American-born theorist of
communication and media.
 He is now Emeritus Professor of Public
Communication at the University of Leeds, and
also Emeritus Professor of Journalism at the
University of Maryland, having spent his early
academic life largely in the UK.
 He was a political science graduate of Antioch
College, and a doctoral student from 1947 at the
London School of Economics.
 . He taught at Ruskin College, Oxford, before
taking a position in Leeds in 1963, as Granada
Television Research Fellow.

6.  Notable Works:
 Television in Politics: Its Uses and Influences (1968)
with Denis McQuail
 The Uses of Mass Communications: Current
Perspectives on Gratifications Research (1974) with
Elihu Katz
 The Challenge of Election Broadcasting. Report of
an Enquiry by the Centre for Television Research,
University of Leeds (1978) with Michael Gurevitch and
Julian Ives
 Communicating to Voters: Television in the First
European Parliamentary Elections (1983) editor with
Anthony D. Fox

7.  He is a Professor in the College of Journalism, and
Affiliate Faculty, Department of Communication,
University of Maryland.
 Notable Works:
 The Challenge of Election Broadcasting. Report of an
Enquiry by the Centre for Television Research, University
of Leeds (1978) with Jay G. Blumler and Julian Ives
 The Secularization of Leisure: Culture and
Communication in Israel (1976) with Elihu Katz
 Culture, Society, and the Media (1982)
 Mass Media and Society (1991)
 Defining Media Studies: Reflections on the Future of the
Field (1994)

8.  The uses and gratifications approach
examines the process of communication
starting from the audience members’
individual perceptions.
 It investigates why individuals choose to use
media.
 Identifies how people use media to satisfy
their needs.
 It does not consider the power of media;
more audience-centered.

9. Researcher Type of study Function (need gratified)
Lazarsfeld-Stanton (1942, Program Analyzer ; to record
1944, 1949) viewer reactions as people
were listening to certain
radio programs. To match one’s wit against
other, to get advice for daily
Herzog (1942) On quiz programs and living, to provide a
listening to soap operas framework for one’s day, to
prepare oneself culturally for
Suchman (1942) Motives for getting the demands of upward
interested in serious music mobility, or to be reassured
on radio about the dignity and
usefulness of one’s role
Wolfe and Fiske (1949) Development of children’s
interest in comics
Berelson (1949) Functions of newspaper
reading

10. 1. A basically similar methodological approach whereby
statements about media functions were drawn out
from the respondents in an essentially open-ended way.
2. They shared a qualitative approach in their attempt to
group gratification statements into labelled categories.
3. They did not attempt to explore the links between
gratifications.
4. They failed to search for the interrelationships among
the various media functions.
5. The aforementioned studies did not result in an
increasing detailed picture of media gratifications
conducive to the formulation of theoretical statements.

11.  The social and psychological origins of
 Needs which generate
 Expectations of
 The mass media and other sources, which lead
to
 Differential patterns of media exposure (or
engagement in other activities), resulting in
 Need gratifications and
 Other consequences, perhaps mostly
unintended ones
All studies strive toward an assessment of media
consumption in audience-related terms

12.  Five assumptions were set that served as
guidelines for conducting uses and
gratifications research, based from
Lundberg and Hulten’s model:
1. The audience is active.
2. The audience member links his/her need
gratifications to media content.

13. 3. The media compete with other sources of
need satisfaction.
4. People are aware of their needs and can
indicate them media researchers.
5. Judgments about the value of what people
attend to should not be part of the research
on uses and gratifications.

14.  The assumptions do not, and were not
intended to, provide a formal theory. They
were only intended to “explain something of
the way in which individuals use
communications among other resources in
their environment, to satisfy their needs and
achieve goals.”
 They provided a broad set of ideas that
helped the uses and gratifications as an
emerging perspective.

15.  Typologies of Audience Gratifications
1. UNIFUNCTIONAL
Function of Media
McDonald (1957) To serve escapist desires
Stephenson (1967) of audience
Depriving it of more
beneficial uses of
communication
Nordenstreng (1970) Gratifies need for social
contact

16. 2. BIFUNCTIONAL
Function of Media
Weiss (1971) Fantasist-escapist/informational-
educational
Schramm (1949) Distinguished between sets of
Schramm, Lyle, and Parker (1961) immediate and deferred
Pietila (1969) gratification
Furu (1971) Distinction between
informational and entertainment
materials
Distinction between surveillance
and escape use of the media

17. 3. FOUR FUNCTIONAL
Function of Media
Laswell (1948) Surveillance
Correlation
Cultural
transmission/Socialization
Wright (1960) Includes entertainment
Dysfunctional equivalents
of Lasswell’s typology

18. 4. RECENT INVESTIGATIONS
Function of Media
McQuail, Blumler, and Brown Diversion (Escape from constraints of
(1972) routine and burdens of problems)
Emotional release
Personal relationships (Substitute
companionship and social utility)
Personal identity (Personal reference,
reality exploration and value
reinforcement)
Surveillance
Katz, Haas, Gurevitch (1973) To connect or disconnect themselves
(Via instrumental, affective, or
integrative relations with different kinds
of others whether self, family, friend, or
nations)

19.  Gratifications and Needs
 The study of mass media use suffers at present from
the absence of a relevant theory of social and
psychological needs.
 Issue: the long-standing problem of social and
psychological science: how to (and whether to bother
to) systematize long lists of human and societal
needs.
 Thus far, gratifications research has stayed closed to
what we have been calling media-related needs (in
the sense that the media have been observed to
satisfy them, at least in part).

20.  Sources of Media Gratifications
 Audience gratifications can be derived from at least
three distinct sources: media content, exposure to the
media per se, and the social context that represents
the situation of exposure to different media.
Researcher Need Media
Waples, Berelson, Need to relax or Television
and Bradshaw (1940) kill time Radio
Berelson (1949) Need to feel that
one’s spending time
worthwhile
Mendelsohn (1964) Need to structure Radio
one’s day

21.  Each medium seems to offer a unique combination of:
(a) characteristic contents
(b) typical attributes (Print vs. Broadcasting mode of
transmission, Reading vs. Audio or audio-visual
modes of reception)
(c) typical exposure situations (Home vs. Out-of-home,
Alone vs. With others)
 Issue: what combinations of attributes may render
different media more or less adequate for the
satisfaction of different needs.

22.  Gratification and Media Attributes
 Two ways of division of labour among the
media for the satisfaction of audience
needs: taking media attributes as the
starting point or utilizing the latent
structure of needs as a point of departure.

23. 1. Media attributes differ and are more likely to serve
different or similar needs
Researcher Findings Type of Media
Robinson (1972) Interchangeability Television
of media for learning Print
purposes
Katz, Gurevitch and Haas Five media in Books+Newspaper = Books+Cinema
(1973) circumplex with their Radio+Newspaper = Radio+Television
functional similarities
(Books-newspapers- Books+Newspaper = technological
radio-television- and informational function
cinema-books) Books+Film = aesthetic function
Radio+Television = technology &
entertainment function
Radio+Newspaper = information &
reality orientation

24. 2. Needs that are psychologically related or conceptually
similar will equally served by the same media with
similar attributes. Structurally related needs will tend
to be serviced by certain media more often than by
others.
Type of Media Needs
Books + Cinema Self-fulfillment and self-
gratification
Help connect individuals to
themselves
Newspaper + Radio + Connect individuals to society
Television

25.  Media dependency theory states that the
more dependent an individual is on the
media for having his or her needs fulfilled,
the more important the media will be to
that person.
 It has been explored as an extension of or an
addition to the uses and gratifications
approach .
 The theory was created by Melvin DeFleur
and Sandra Ball-Rokeach.

26.  DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach described
dependency as the correlating relationship
between media content, the nature of
society, and the behavior of audiences.
 They suggested that active selectors’ use of
the media to achieve their goals will result in
being dependent on the media.

27. 1. First, you will become more dependent on
media that meet a number of your needs
than on media that provide just a few.
2. Second is social stability. When social change
and conflict are high, established institutions,
beliefs, and practices are challenged, forcing
you to reevaluate and make new choices. At
such times your reliance on the media for
information will increase. At other, more stable
times your dependency on media may go way
down.

28.  The intensity of media dependency depends
on how much people perceive that the
media they choose are meeting their goals.
 These goals were into three dimensions
which cover a wide range of individual
objectives:
1. Social and self-understanding
2. Interaction and action orientation
3. Social and solitary play

29.  The authors also suggested that more than
one kind of goal can be activated (and
satisfied) by the same medium.

30.  Dependency on a specific medium is
influenced by the number of media sources
available to an individual.
 Individuals should become more dependent
on available media if their access to media
alternatives is limited.
 The more alternatives there are for an
individual, the lesser is the dependency on
and influence of a specific medium.

31.  Ball-Rokeach, S. J. & DeFleur, M. L. (1989).
Theories of Mass Communication (5th ed.). New
York: Longman.
 DeFleur, M. (2010). Mass Communication Theories:
Explaining Origins, Processes, and Effects. Boston,
MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
 Rossi, E. (2002). Uses & gratifications/dependency
theory. Retrieved January 7, 2012, from
http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~johnca/spch100/7-4-
uses.htm.

32.  Wikipedia (). Jay Blumler. Retrieved January
7, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Blumler
 Wikipedia (). Elihu Katz. Retrieved January 7,
2021, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elihu_Katz
 WorldCat Identities (). Michael Gurevitch.
Retrieved January 8, 2012, from
http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50-
82078