Theory of uses and gratifications: A Review

Abstract

The main goal of the uses and gratifications theory was to explain what kind of the needs people can fulfill through media usage. According to this theory: audience is active and individuals use media to achieve some goals and gratifications. The gratifications that audience can accomplish through media usage are numerous: usefulness (people use media to execute some task), intention (media content determines the usage), selectivity according to person's interests and resistance to influences (members of the audience values media content independently to media persuasion). Uses and gratifications studies have dealt with all kinds of communication tools, such as: television, newspapers, video games, Internet, etc. Even though uses and gratifications theory appears to be very successful in understanding the motives for media usage, some issues remain to be solved and studied in more details in methodological terms.

Keywords

• theory of uses and gratifications
• media
• motives
• communication