What is uses and gratification theory of communication?
Uses and gratifications theory asserts that people use media to gratify specific wants and needs. Unlike many media theories that view media users as passive, uses and gratifications sees users as active agents who have control over their media consumption.
What are the 4 uses and gratifications theory?
The four categories were: (1) Diversion: escape from routine or problems; emotional release; (2) Personal relationships: companionship; social utility; (3) Personal identity: self reference; reality exploration; value reinforces; and (4) Surveillance (forms of information seeking).
Who proposed uses and gratification theory?
Coined in the early 1940s by Katz and Blumler (1974), the uses and gratifications theory deals with understanding why people use certain types of media, what needs do they have to use them, and what gratifications do they get from using them.
What two theorists talk about uses and gratifications?
Uses and Gratifications theory as developed by Bulmer and Katz suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. Bulmer and Katz believed that the user seeks out the media source that best fulfils their needs.
What is Blumler and Katz uses and gratifications theory?
Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratification theory suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. Users take an active part in the communication process and are goal oriented in their media use.
What are the five assumptions of uses and gratification theory?
Five Assumptions Media use is motivated and goal-oriented. People always have a reason for consuming media, even if it’s simply habit or entertainment. People select media based on their expectation that it will satisfy specific wants and needs. Media use is driven by individual social and psychological factors.
Why was the uses and gratification theory created?
The uses and gratifications theory focuses on an active audience and what people do with media, rather than the effect media has on people. The theory originated in the 1970s as a reaction to traditional mass communication research emphasizing the sender and the message.
What are the strengths of the uses and gratification theory?
The main advantage of the uses and gratification approach is that it gives an insight to motivation for consuming a particular media content, which complements the findings about the interaction between the media and its users.
What are the weakness of the uses and gratification theory?
Uses and gratification can be used to incite neglect and promote cultural imperialism in the people. Some people only watch certain programs based on the socio-cultural background of the host instead of analyzing the content of the message. The viewers tend to only watch and not think about what is going on.
What are the advantages of uses and gratification theory?
Is uses and gratification theory still relevant?
In fact, uses and gratifications has always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass communications medium: newspapers, radio and television, and now the Internet.
What are criticisms of uses and gratification theory?
Criticisms of Uses and Gratification Theory Critics think that the theory does not meet the standards to be called a theory and can only be taken as an approach to analyze as research relies on recollection of memory. The theory ignores the use of media in social structures. Audience might not always be active.
What is the uses and gratifications theory Blumler and Katz?
What is Katz and Blumler?
Blumler and Katz (1974) concluded that different people can use the same communication message for very different purposes. The same media content may gratify different needs for different individuals. There is not only one way that people uses media.
What is the uses and gratification theory by Elihu Katz?
The Uses and Gratification theory by Elihu Katz came into existence when the theorist concocted the idea that individuals utilize the media to their advantage. The point of view rose in the mid 1970 ‘s as Katz and his two associates, Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch kept on extending the thought.
What is the uses and gratifications theory of communication?
The uses and gratifications theory is one of many used to create effective communications programs when it is implemented properly. It describes the relationships formed between the media and its active audience. The audience (acting actively, not passively) select and use the media to fulfill their own needs and desires.
What are some criticisms of uses and gratifications theory?
Though Uses and Gratifications Theory represents a vast improvement over earlier models that assumed audiences were passive and gullible, critics have still managed to find some shortcomings within it. First of all, some researchers say the theory credits audiences with too much selectivity.
What is the uses and gratifications approach to media?
The uses and gratifications approach accentuates the relationship between the sender and the message and how motives and gratifications drive people’s actions in relation to the media. The uses and gratifications theory strives to understand what people do with media outlets and the reasons behind their decisions and actions.