Uses and gratifications theory


Uses and gratifications theory is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. UGT is an audience-centered approach to understanding mass communication. Diverging from other media effect theories that question "what does media do to people?", UGT focuses on "what do people do with media?"
It postulates that media is a highly available product and the audiences are the consumers of the same product.
This communication theory is positivistic in its approach, based in the socio-psychological communication tradition, and focuses on communication at the mass media scale. The driving question of UGT is: Why do people use media and what do they use them for? UGT discusses how users deliberately choose media that will satisfy given needs and allow one to enhance knowledge, relaxation, social interactions/companionship, diversion, or escape.
It assumes that audience members are not passive consumers of media. Rather, the audience has power over their media consumption and assumes an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. Unlike other theoretical perspectives, UGT holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their desires and needs to achieve gratification. This theory would then imply that the media compete against other information sources for viewers' gratification.
UGT has a heuristic value today because it gives communication scholars a "perspective through which a number of ideas and theories about media choice, consumption, and even impact can be viewed".

Uses and gratifications approach

Mark Levy and Sven Windahl provide a good description of what it means to be an "active consumer" of media:

Assumptions of the theory

Unlike other theories concerning media consumption, UGT gives the consumer power to discern what media they consume, with the assumption that the consumer has a clear intent and use. This contradicts previous theories such as mass society theory, that states that people are helpless victims of mass media produced by large companies; and individual differences perspective, which states that intelligence and self-esteem largely drive an individual's media choice.
Given these differing theories, UGT is unique in its assumptions:
Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch synthesized that UGT's approach was focused on "the social and psychological origins of needs, which generate expectations of the mass media or other sources, which lead to differential patterns of media exposure, resulting in need gratifications and some other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones."
According to Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch's research there were five components comprising the Uses and Gratifications Approach. The components are:
  1. The audience is conceived as active.
  2. In the mass communication process, much initiative in linking gratification and media choice lies with the audience member.
  3. The media compete with other sources of satisfaction.
  4. Methodologically speaking, many of the goals of mass media use can be derived from data supplied by individual audience members themselves.
  5. Value judgments about the cultural significance of mass communication should be suspended while audience orientations are explored on their own terms.
According to the research, goals for media use can be grouped into five uses. The audience wants to:
  1. be informed or educated
  2. identify with characters of the situation in the media environment
  3. simple entertainment
  4. enhance social interaction
  5. escape from the stresses of daily life

    ''Gratifications sought (GS) vs. gratifications obtained (GO)''

GS and GO is one of the research issues dealing with U&G theory, and it is a contrast between "what you were seeking from experience" versus "what you actually got from the experience - whether it was a satisfying experience or not."

History

Beginning in the 1940s, researchers began seeing patterns under the perspective of the uses and gratifications theory in radio listeners. Early research was concerned with topics such as children's use of comics and the absence of newspapers during a newspaper strike. An interest in more psychological interpretations emerged during this time period.
In 1948, Lasswell introduced a four-functional interpretation of the media on a macro-sociological level. Media served the functions of surveillance, correlation, entertainment and cultural transmission for both society and individuals

Stages of the theory

Uses and gratifications theory was developed from a number of prior communication theories and research conducted by fellow theorists.

Stage 1

Mobile phone usage

, a comparatively new technology, have many uses and gratifications attached to them. Due to their nature of mobility, constant access, and options to both add and access content, this field is expanding with new research on the motivations behind using mobile phones.
In general, people use mobile phones for the following uses and gratifications
Uses and gratifications do, however, differ based on location and audience:
The specific function of text messaging has been studied to find its uses and gratifications and explore any potential gender differences. The researchers proposed seven uses and gratifications; they are listed below, from highest to lowest ranked according to the study's results:
The results also displayed gender differences : women scored the UG of accessibility/mobility, relaxation and escape, and coordination higher than the men did. These results may imply social and societal expectations for females around independence but connected to family and friends and/or a tendency for women to rely more on detailed conversation in text messaging than men.
Since many now use their mobile phones as devices to connect to the internet and both contribute and retrieve content, researchers have investigated the UG of smart devices which engage multiple media. The uses and gratifications for contributing mobile content differ from those for retrieving mobile content.
The Internet provides a new and deep field for exploring UGT. It was found to have three main categories of gratifications: content gratification, process gratification, and social gratification.
Scholars like LaRose et al. utilize UGT to understand Internet usage via a socio-cognitive framework to reduce uncertainties that arise from homogenizing an Internet audience and explaining media usage in terms of only positive outcomes. LaRose et al. created measures for self-efficacy and self-disparagement and related UGT to negative outcomes of online behavior as well.

Social media usage

Recent research has looked at social networking services, personal and subject-based blogs, and internet forums put together to study the U&G in posting social content, the relationship between gratifications and narcissism, and the effects of age on this relationship and these gratifications. Users have motivations of the following overall:
Forums were found to be the main media for venting negative feelings, potentially due to the fact that comparatively, forums are more of a one-way street. Use of social media cures loneliness and satisfies a compulsion for addictive behaviors. Similar to the variables of gender, location, and audience as previous research has found, the U&G differed by category of narcissism. The researchers found four multi-dimensional narcissistic personality types: feeling authoritative or superior, exhibitionistic, exploitative, and often hungry for vanity. The U&G differed depending on the specific type of narcissism a given user had. For instance, those who were exhibitionistic tended to focus on the social media U&G of showing affection, expressing negative feelings, and being recognized. Those who viewed themselves as superior had higher uses and gratifications by cognitive motivations than by recognition. The vain narcissists were most gratified by recognition and attention, and they did not vent negative feelings. Exhibitionists were motivated by all gratifications of social media. No generational differences were found in the narcissistic tendencies.

Friend-networking sites

Basic research finds that socialization motivates use of friend-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Particulars under socialization might be finding old friends, making new friends, learning about events, creating social functions, and feeling connected. Some further exploration has demonstrated that although emotional, cognitive, social, and habitual uses are motivational to use social media, not all uses are consistently gratified. In research examining Facebook groups' users' gratifications in relation to their civic participation offline, 1,715 college students were asked "to rate their level of agreement with specific reasons for using Facebook groups, including information acquisition about campus/community, entertainment/recreation, social interaction with friends and family, and peer pressure/self satisfaction." The study ultimately yielded results through principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation. The results showed that there were four needs for using Facebook groups, "socializing, entertainment, self-status seeking, and information."
is an online micro-blogging platform that contains both mass-media functions and interpersonal communication options via sending tweets. Research has found a positive correlation between active time spent on Twitter and the gratification of a need for "an informal sense of camaraderie"—connection—with other users. Furthermore, the frequency of tweets and number of replies and public messages mediated the relationship between Twitter users. This helped increase both use and gratification of the media by satisfying the need for connection.

Snapchat

Snapchat is a photo-sharing social media platform with more than 178 million users worldwide. Similar to other forms of social media, people use Snapchat to fulfill specific media needs. Compared to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Snapchat is used more to fulfill private media needs. For example, Phua, Jin, and Kim found that Snapchat interactions were similar to interactions found in close interpersonal relationships. The application has been used to attain emotional support from others, look for advice on important decisions, and seek help to solve problems, satisfying the need to socialize, vent negative feelings, and connect with others.

Other applications

Many other aspects of UGT are featured in using various websites that are related to social networking. Many review services, such as Yelp.com, have an aspect of social networking, with user profiles and interconnectivity. Many news websites feature the ability to share articles and pictures directly from their page to users' personal social networking pages across platforms. Understandably, information seeking is an overwhelming U&G for these applications, especially the review sites like Yelp.com. Other U&G included entertainment, convenience, interpersonal utility, and passing time. A more sinister aspect of UGT and a reason to use social media establishes a platform for cyberbullying.
People engage in cyberbullying online and through social media in order to gratify themselves. Cyberbullying fulfills a need to be vengeful and malicious, while avoiding face-to-face contact. Similarly, besides information seeking, users who share news are motivated by U&G of socializing and status seeking, especially if they have had prior experience with social media.

Instant messaging

As with text messaging, similar U&G were studied with instant messaging, or participating in an "online chat," and these results were also mitigated by gender:
Again, differences were found based on amount of use and gender. Those who used the instant messaging service frequently were found to be most motivated by affection and sociability; those who did not were most motivated by fashion. Women chatted longer and for sociability; men chatted for less time per session and for entertainment and relaxation.

Online gaming

This new branch of research explores the U&G of starting to play games online. Achievement, enjoyment and social interaction are all motivations for starting to play an online game, and their success at the game as well as the extent to which their uses were gratified predicted their continuance in playing.

Mobile Gaming and Augmented Reality

In 2017, researchers applied Uses and Gratification Theory to study user behavior among Pokémon Go users. Results show that enjoyment, physical activity, nostalgia, image, normative influences and flow drive various forms of user behavior. In addition, perceived physical risks lead to weaker forms of usage. Findings of this study show that Uses and Gratification theory provides a promising framework to study Augmented Reality, and that U> provides a robust framework that can be supplemented with other theories.

Animated news

In 2011, a test was conducted with 312 college students to investigate their viewing of animated news. The use of melodramatic animation in news was seen as an emerging technique used in news reporting at the time. The respondents were given 59 statements to rate according to how well each of these statements applies to their viewing of animated news. Factor analysis and hierarchical regression were employed for data analysis.
In the study, seven motives were identified, through factor analysis, for viewing such animated news videos. These motives included companionship, social interaction, relaxation, information seeking, interpersonal learning, entertainment and pass time.
The results of hierarchical regression analysis suggest predictive relationships among personality characteristics, the seven motives, the effects of perceived news credibility and newsworthiness, and the intention to share such animated news videos with others.

Entertainment media

Research has shown that media taken in for entertainment purposes have a wide range of uses and emotional gratifications, and that these are not mutually exclusive but can overlap with each other. Rehman demonstrated a relationship between gratifications sought and obtained from the movies and movie attendance.

Media system dependency theory

has been studied as an offshoot of UGT. However, media dependency theory focuses on audiences' goals for media consumption as the source of their dependency; while uses and gratification theory focuses on audience's needs as drivers for media consumption. MSDT states that as a person becomes increasingly dependent on media to satisfy their needs, that media will become more important in a person's life and thereby have increased influence and effects that person. MSDT acknowledges and builds upon UGT because it is based on the assumptions that people have different uses for media that arise from their needs.

Social cognitive theory

Building on UGT, Social Cognitive Theory helped distinguish GS versus GO stimulus for media consumption. Social cognitive theory explains behavior in terms of the reciprocal causation between individuals, environments, and behaviors. This allows for a more personal application of UGT instead of a large, blanketing assumption about a large audience of mass media. If GO is greater than GS then there will be more audience satisfaction. Lastly, audiences' GS are not always the reality of their GO.

Cultivation theory

is concerned with understanding the role that media play in shaping a person's world view—specifically television. Whereas UGT tries to understand the motivations that drive media usage, Cultivation theory focuses on the psychological effects of media. Cultivation theory is used especially to study violence in television and how it shapes audience's understanding of the reality of violence in society. Often, because of media's influence, audiences have a more heightened and unrealistic perception of the amount of violence. A UGT approach may be implemented to Cultivation theory cases to understand why an audience would seek violent media and if audiences seek television violence to satisfy the need of confirmation of their worldview.

Theory criticism

Uses and gratifications has, almost since its inception, been viewed by some as the Pluto of communication theory, which is to say critics argue that it does not meet the standards necessary to be theory. Critics argue that it instead is more of an approach to analysis or a data-collecting strategy.
Among the criticism most commonly raised in academic literature:
Using this sociologically-based theory has little to no link to the benefit of psychology due to its weakness in operational definitions and weak analytical mode. It also is focused too narrowly on the individual and neglects the social structure and place of the media in that structure. Ruggiero wrote that "most scholars agree that early research had little theoretical coherence and was primarily behaviorist and individualist in its methodological tendencies." Blumler and other critics have argued that line between gratification and satisfaction is blurred, and Blumler wrote that "the nature of the theory underlying uses and gratifications research is not totally clear."
Despite such criticism, contemporary thought suggests that uses and gratifications as theory may be in the process of gaining new life as a result of new communication technology. While it was easy to question the agency of media consumers who had three television networks from which to choose, it's much harder to argue that a consumer who now has 100 cable channels and Internet-streaming video is not making his own decisions. Sundar & Limperos write that what had been called the "audience" is now referred to as "users," and "usage implies volitional action, not simply passive reception."

The active audience

Among the most criticized tenets of uses and gratifications as theory is the assumption of an active audience. Ruggerio noted three assumptions that are necessary to the idea of active audience: First, media selection is initiated by the individual. Second, expectations regarding the use of media must be a product of individual predispositions, social interactions and environmental factors. And third, the active audience exhibits goal-directed behavior. This concept of active audience finds, at best, limited acceptance outside of the United States.
Jay Blumler presented a number of interesting points, as to why Uses and Gratifications cannot measure an active audience. He stated, "The issue to be considered here is whether what has been thought about Uses and Gratifications Theory has been an article of faith and if it could now be converted into an empirical question such as: How to measure an active audience?". Blumler then offered suggestions about the kinds of activity the audiences were engaging with in the different types of media.
25 years later, in 1972, Blumler, McQuail and Brown extended Lasswell's four groups. These included four primary factors for which one may use the media:
Katz, Gurevitch and Haas saw mass media as a means by which individuals connect or disconnect themselves with others. They developed 35 needs taken from the largely speculative literature on the social and psychological functions of the mass media and put them into five categories: