Uses and Gratifications theory

During the 1960's, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways.

In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:

•  Surveillance
•  Correlations
•  Entertainment
• Cultral Transmission

Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded his theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (e.g uses and gratifications):

•  Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
•  Personal Relationships - Using the media for emotional and other intercation (e.g substituting soap operas for family life)
•  Personal identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behavior and values from texts
•  Surveiliance - Information which could be useful for living (e.g weather reports, financial news, holiday bargins)

The list of uses and gratifications has been extended, paticularly as new media forms have come along (e.g video and games and internet)