USES AND GRATIFICATION
THEORY (U&G)
OUTLINE
1. MAIN IDEA
2. HISTORY & ORIENTATION
3. CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
4. SCOPE AND APPLICATION
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MAIN IDEA
How people use the media for their own need and get
satisfied when their needs are fulfilled.
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HISTORY & ORIENTATION
▪ Uses and gratifications was first introduced in the 1940s as scholars
began to study why people choose to consume various forms of
media.
▪ For the next few decades, uses and gratifications research mostly
focused on the gratifications media users sought.
▪ Then, in the 1970s, researchers turned their attention to the
outcomes of media use and the social and psychological needs that
media gratified.
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HISTORY & ORIENTATION
▪ Today, the theory is often credited to Jay Blumler and Elihu Katz’s
work in 1974.
▪ As media technologies continue to proliferate, research on uses and
gratifications theory is more important than ever for understanding
people’s motivations for choosing media and the gratifications they
get out of it.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
▪ The Uses and Gratification theory discusses the effects of the media
on people.
▪ It explains how people use the media for their own need and get
satisfied when their needs are fulfilled.
▪ In other words, it can be said that the theory argues what people do
with media rather than what media does to people.
▪ Also, this theory is in contradiction to the MAGIC BULLET THEORY,
which states that the audience is passive.
▪ USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY characterizes people as
active and motivated in selecting the media they choose to consume.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
▪ This theory has a user/audience-centered approach.
▪ Even for communication, say – interpersonal, people refer to the
media for the topic to discuss among themselves.
▪ By referring the media, they gain more knowledge and exposure to
the world beyond their limited eyesight.
▪ The theory relies on TWO principles: 1) media users are active in their
selection of the media they consume, and 2) they are aware of their
reasons for selecting different media options.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
Uses and gratifications theory attempts to explain the uses and
functions of the media for individuals, groups, and society in
general.
There are three objectives in developing uses and gratifications
theory:
1) to explain how individuals use mass communication to gratify
their needs. “What do people do with the media”.
2) to discover underlying motives for individuals’ media use.
3) to identify the positive and the negative consequences of
individual media use.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
Using these objectives, the USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
THEORY assumes that the audience is using certain media to
achieve a goal, or gratification.
There are different needs gratified by media outlets. They are
categorized into five needs.
1. COGNITIVE NEEDS
2. AFFECTIVE NEEDS
3. PERSONAL INTEGRATIVE NEEDS
4. SOCIAL INTEGRATIVE NEEDS
5. TENSION FREE NEEDS
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
COGNITIVE NEEDS
▪ People use media for acquiring knowledge, information, facts, etc.
▪ Among the audience, some have the thirst to acquire intellectual and
academic knowledge. This is not a very common phenomenon.
▪ Different people have different needs. For example, quiz programs
on television give on factual knowledge; to know about current
affairs people need to watch the news regularly; search engines on
the internet are also very popular since people can browse for any
topic easily under the run with no time restriction.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
AFFECTIVE NEEDS
▪ It includes all kinds of emotions, pleasure and moods of the people.
People use media; say television, to satisfy their emotional needs.
▪ The best example would be when people get emotional or
sometimes even they cry for a sad scene while watching the
movie/soap opera.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
PERSONAL INTEGRATIVE NEEDS
▪ This is the self-esteem need.
▪ People use media to reassure their status, gain credibility and stabilize.
▪ So people watch television and assure themselves that they have a
respectable status in society.
▪ For example, people watch advertisements in the media like jewellery
ads, furniture ads, apparel ads, etc. and buy these products so that
they can change their lifestyle.
▪ Hence the media helps them to do so.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
SOCIAL INTEGRATIVE NEEDS
▪ It encompasses the need to socialize with family, friends and relations
in society.
▪ For social interaction nowadays, people do not seem to gather socially
during weekends instead they have turned to social networking sites on
the internet such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr etc. to satisfy their
needs.
▪ Another example is people may start watching a particular programme,
not because they have any self interest, but because their
neighbour/friend watches it such that both the parties may have
something in common to discuss.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
TENSION FREE NEEDS
▪ People sometimes use the media as a means to escapism from the
real world and to relieve from tension and stress.
▪ For example, people tend to relax while watching television, listening
to the radio, surfing the internet, etc.
▪ In fact, media has the power to grab audience mind since it makes
them feel connected with the situation and characters emotionally.
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CORE ASSUMPTIONS AND STATEMENTS
▪ The needs are specific in nature to the individual and how the media
satisfies the need is subjective.
▪ For example, some people may watch the news to relax while others
may get tensed or agitated by the same.
▪ The media is the same, but people use it for different needs.
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SCOPE AND APPLICATION
▪ Today, the USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY is heavily
used by communicators and media professionals in public
relations, advertising and marketing for various brands.
▪ By examining a target audience and thoroughly researching an
audience’s environment, a specific campaign can be designed and
altered to the audience’s needs.
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SCOPE AND APPLICATION
▪ The USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY is a very broad
communications approach to understanding an audience.
▪ This allows it to be used in many ways in the field of public relations.
▪ Two of the main reasons an audience will choose a particular medium
is based on their entertainment and informational needs.
▪ By studying the USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY and
examining an audience, a public relations team can determine what
needs they must gratify to inform, entertain and engage the
audience.
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SCOPE AND APPLICATION
▪ The USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY allows the public
relations team to determine how they are going to engage the
audience, both verbally and nonverbally.
▪ The team will decide not only who their target audience is, but
what channel to use to reach such an audience and what must be
said in order to do so.
▪ In using this theory, a campaign can be directly targeted to the
audience of the brand’s choosing while being entirely shaped
around the audience’s goals.
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SCOPE AND APPLICATION
▪ An audience knows exactly what they are searching for in a media
message.
▪ Therefore, it is especially important for a public relations
campaign to use the desired media to influence the specified
audience in their campaign implementation.
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