Uses and gratification model (active)✅
Uses and gratifications model
Of all the media effects models, this model assumes the media have the weakest effects, and the audience is the most active. It asks not so much what the media do to influence and manipulate audiences, but changes the emphasis to what audiences do with the media or use them for.
The uses and gratifications model starts with a view that media audiences are thinking, active and creative human beings, who use the media in various ways for their own pleasures and interests (gratifications).
Media audiences use the media in a whole variety of ways. McQuail and Lull suggest a variety of uses and gratifications of the media. They may be used for:
Diversion for leisure, entertainment and relaxation, to escape from daily routines.
Personal relationships to keep up with family and friends, or companionship, through identification with media communities, or situations and characters in reality TV shows, or as a conversation starter in groups.
Personal identity to explore and confirm peoples own identities or to seek out new sources of identity, or explore interests and values, for example keeping up with contemporary trends in cooking, gardening, fashion, music or changing social attitudes.
Surveillance to access information about things that might affect users, to find out about the world or to help them to things, accomplish something or make their minds up about issues that may affect them.
Background wallpaper while doing other things
Park et al used the model in a web survey of those who were members of Facebook groups. They found the online groups were used to satisfy multiple needs: for entertainment and amusement, talking and meeting with others to achieve a sense of community and peer support on the particular topic of the group, maintaining and seeking out their personal status, as well as that of friends and to receive information about events going on related to the group.
This variety of uses of the media, providing a range of pleasures, means people make conscious choices, select and interpret what they watch on TV or read in newspapers, magazines and websites, and use them for an array of needs which they themselves decide upon.
These different uses mean the effects of the media are likely to be different in each case, depending on what people are using the media for. We therefore can’t assume that the uses and effects even of the same media content will be the same in every case. The uses and gratifications of the media are likely to vary from one individual to the next, and these will be influence by factors such s their age, gender, social class or ethnicity, and their previous experiences, attitudes and values.
The uses and gratifications model also recognises that audiences have some power to decide media content: a failure by media companies to satisfy audience pleasures will mean no viewers, listeners or readers, hence no advertisers, and therefore the companies or the particular channel, radio station, website or newspaper or magazine will risk going out of business.
Limitations of the uses and gratifications model
The model overestimates the power of the audience to influence media content. It also underestimates the power and influence of the media and media companies to shape and influence the choices people make and the pleasures they derive from the media. Media companies set the choices, and the media may create the different pleasures themselves, through devices like advertising.
It focuses too much on the use of the media by individuals. It doesn’t allow for the group aspects of media audiences, unlike the two-step flow model and cultural effects models, which recognise that people often relate to the media in social groups, and it is these group settings which will influence their uses and gratifications.
The focus on individual uses and gratifications ignores the wider social factors affecting the way audiences respond. Common experiences and common values may mean many people will respond in similar ways to media content.