USES AND GRATIFICATIONSAn Evolving

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
An Evolving Perspective of Media Effects

 The Perspective
Since the middle of the 20th century, many communication scholars have adopted an alternative perspective to address communication processes from the vantage point of the individual communicator, rather than from that of the undue influence of the medium. Uses and gratifications is an alternative to traditional media effects approaches for studying media processes (McLeod & Becker, 1974). It has evolved and matured as a perspective highlighting the role of audience initiative to explain channel choice and message selection, interpretation, response, and impact.
According to uses and gratifications, the media and their content are sources 0f influence among other potential sources. Audience members take the initiative in selecting these media and are not simply passive targets of media messages. Besides individual motivation and choice, uses and gratifications highlights the role of background characteristics of individuals so that communication influence is socially and psychologically constrained (Rosengren, 1974). Individual differences and motivation, societal structure, and individual attitudes, initiative, and involvement, then, mediate the potential effects of the media. Therefore, ii we seek to explain media effects, we must first understand media audiences. Uses and gratifications, then, is a psychological communication perspective (Fisher, 1978), shifting the focus from the direct and undue influence of the media on passive and isolated individuals to active audience members selecting and using the media.
Several assumptions underpin uses and gratifications (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974; Palmgreen, 1984; Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rosengren, 1985; Rubin, 2002). First, communication behavior is purposive and motivated. Second, people are relatively active participants who select media and their content. Third, social and psychological characteristics, societal structure, social groups and relationships, and personal involvement mediate communication behavior and effects. Fourth, media compete with other channels—that is, functional alternatives—for selection attention, and use. Fifth, people are usually more influential than the media in the media effects process.
Katz et al. (1974) suggested an additional methodological assumption: People can articulate their own reasons to communicate and provide accurate information about media use. In fact, self-report questionnaires have been the primary method for data collection in uses and gratifications. Although some critics have questioned the validity of this assumption (e.g., Elliott, 1974), this method of data collection, which has been supplemented by ethnographic, diary, and experimental methods, has usually been shown to be valid and reliable (Rubin, 1981, 2002).
Uses-and-gratifications researchers have examined (a) a variety of traditional media, primarily television, but also radio, print media, music, and movies; (b) different media content such as news, soap operas, and sports; and (c) emerging media, including videocassette recorders, television remote controls, personal computers, and the Internet. Consistent with the philosophy of uses and gratifications, these newer media have enhanced people’s choices and selectivity of channels and content when they seek to gratify needs and desires, and have emphasized the role of individual initiative, motivation, and involvement.
When focusing on the various media and their content, uses-and-gratifications researchers have explored basic constructs of the perspective, especially motivation; audience initiative and involvement; and functional alternatives to the media, including links to interpersonal communication. They have examined social, psychological, and communication mediators in the uses-and-effects process, such as locus of control, loneliness, and unwillingness to communicate. When trying to understand media effects, research applications have followed a path from traditional to newer media, especially computer-mediated communication (CMC) and the Internet. We have learned that uses and gratifications is a most compatible approach to the study of uses and effects of the newer electronic media at the beginning of the 21st century.

 Background and Development
AUDIENCE CHOICE AND INITIATIVE
In its early years, uses and gratifications emerged from a shift in the focus of media researchers from the classical effects question “what do media do to people?” to a different query, “what do people do with media?” (Katz, 1959, p.2). Katz argued that even powerful media usually cannot influence people who have no use for these media or their messages because “people’s values, their interests, their associations, their social roles, are pre-potent” and “people selectively ‘fashion’ what they see and hear to these interests” (p 3).
Closely following this argument, Klapper (1960) questioned the validity of mechanistic approaches to studying media effects and offered a phenomenistic view of mass communication. He proposed that several elements—including individual predispositions, selective perception, and interpersonal dissemination of messages—intervene between message and response so that media messages intended to persuade usually reinforce people’s attitudes and behavior. Klapper stated two important points. First, the media, alone, are usually not necessary or sufficient causes of effects. Second, a medium might be an important source, but it is only one source of influence in our environment. Three years later, Klapper (1963) endorsed uses and gratifications for studying media effects. In addition, Bauer (1963) argued that we should consider the audience’s initiative in “getting the information it wants and avoiding what it does not want” (p. 7).
According to uses and gratifications, media are sources of influence working within a context of other possible influences. Media audiences are largely purposive, motivated, goal-directed, and variably active communicators who take the initiative when communicating. People select and use communication vehicles to satisfy their felt needs or desires. Social and psychological factors generate expectations and desires about communication settings, partners, and media, and are important factors to address in the process. These individual differences filter behavior and socially and psychologically constrain mediated communication. We need to understand motives and individual differences to explain media effects.
Uses and gratifications emphasizes individual choice. People choose among available communication or functional alternatives. They make their choices based on their wants, interests, and expectations. These choices affect the process and outcomes of communication (Katz et al., l974 Rubin, 2002). To understand communication processes and outcomes, we need to understand people’s background, motives, and involvement (Rosengren, 1974). In particular, people are variably motivated and involved when they communicate.

RESEARCH PROCRESSION
The roots of uses-and-gratifications research lie in the 1940s. The early research formulated typologies of motives rather than explaining media processes or effects. These typologies include the appeal of radio programs and newspapers. For example, Lazarsfeld (1940) considered the appeals of radio programs. Herzog (1940) suggested that four types of appeals motivated listeners of a radio quiz program: competition, education, self-rating, and sporting. Herzog (1944) also suggested that women sought distinct gratifications when listening to radio daytime serials: emotional release, wishful thinking, and seeking advice. When examining why people missed a newspaper during a strike, Berelson (1949) identified five motives for reading newspapers: to be informed about and to interpret public affairs, as a tool for daily living, for relief and escape from personal problems, for social prestige, and to feel connected to people in the news. In addition, Lasswell (1948) suggested media are functional for people and societies because they perform discrete activities: surveillance of the environment, correlation of pans of that environment, and transmission of our heritage. Later, Wright (1960) added entertainment as a fourth media activity. The research of this era preceded more conceptual descriptions of media use identified in subsequent studies and writings.
Later, for instance, McQuail, Blumler, and Brown (1972) suggested people watch television for four reasons: diversion (e.g., escaping problems, relaxing, releasing emotions, filling time); personal relationships (e.g., seeking companionship, social empathy, and social utility when talking with others); personal identity (e.g., reinforcing valves, self-understanding, exploring reality); and surveillance (e.g., learning, seeking advice, finding information). Similarly, Katz, Gurevitch, and Haas (1973) argued that people take the initiative for using the media to satisfy their cognitive needs (e.g., knowledge and understanding), affective needs (e.g., pleasure and emotion), social integrative needs (e.g., contact with family and friends), and tension-release needs (e.g., escape and disconnecting from others). From this foundation, Katz et al. (1974) synthesized the uses-and-gratifications approach, emphasizing an active audience, the initiative of motivated audience members in linking media choice and need gratification, and media competing with other functional alternatives for selection and use.
Over the years, uses-and-gratifications researchers have pursued a variety of tasks (Rubin, 2002). They have established typologies of media motives and linked these motives with people’s attitudes such as affinity and perceived reality and behaviors. They have compared people’s motives for using various media. They have examined people’s psychological and social circumstances such as