Uses and Gratifications

Uses and Gratifications

- During the 1960s it became clear that audiences were making choices about how, why and when they consumed certain media texts. Making them much more active

- Blumer and Katz created the theory in 1974 suggesting there were four main reasons why an audience might consume a media text:

Diversion - Escape from everyday problems and routine

Personal relationships - An audience uses the media for a form of social interaction in their life

Personal Identity -Constructing their own identity from characters in media texts, adopting their learning behaviour and values

Surveillance - Gain some form of information e.g. documentries 

Denis McQuail broke this down even further with a much more jn depth version of audience…