Secondary Research - Uses and Gratification Theory

The uses and gratification theory is an audience centred approach which states that audiences are active viewers, choosing to view texts for different reasons as well as in many different formats.

Laswell (1948) suggested that media texts have specific purposes in society:

•       Building relationships

•       Entertainment

•       Surveillance

•       Sharing cultures

Blumler and Katz (1974) then expanded this idea and created their own version, which stated that individuals choose texts for the following reasons:

•        Escapism – Removing themselves from everyday issues and routines.

•        Personal Relationships – Building emotional links with others who enjoy the same texts.

•        Personal identity – Stating particular identities by consuming texts, ‘finding yourself’ and learning behaviour from them.

•       Surveillance – Gaining information the consumer requires, such as news reports.

Due to the development of technology, such as catch-up or ‘on demand’ channels on the internet as well as video sharing websites like YouTube, texts have become more available for consumption. This means this theory is continuously developing to adapt to the new texts become accessible for the consumers.

 

•       In terms of the Uses and Gratification theory, music videos are a form of escapism from the real world. In reference to narrative videos, the audience have a chance to observe a character’s life, they are able to escape into that character’s narrative.

•       Personal relationships can be formed through association. This is due to audience members watching the same videos and being able to discuss them, finding similarities between said audience members’ interests.

•       Individuals are able to gain a personal identity from watching particular music videos. This is because being associated with various genres of music places people into categories in the public eye. For example, those who enjoy rock music may be classed as ‘emos’, ‘grebs’ or ‘metalheads’, depending on the sub-genre of the music.

•       Although information, such as a news report, is not collected from conventional music videos, key life lessons and the study of particular emotions can be seen within contemporary music videos.