The Uses and Gratification Theory - Case Study Example

?Introduction In the modern world, it has become impossible to live without encountering media in one form or the other and it has become normal for people to wake up to the sound of radio, listen to an iPod while travelling, or pass by a billboard advertising one product or another. It has therefore become a fact that all human beings in the world today have become witnesses and audiences of the diverse forms of media available today (Allison, 2006). The audiences have come to evolve as human civilization has also progressed, from all the people in attendance participating in an event, to just a few people performing while the others remain as a silent audience. In previous eras, the main sources of entertainment for people tended to be festivals dedicated either to harvesting, or in praise of one god or another. In the western perspective, this came to be replaced by theatre and with the modern age came the development of television and the television networks which continue to offer a wide variety of visual entertainment. The advancement in technology has increased the demand for entertainment from individuals, and because of the wide variety of entertainment being offered, it is not a surprise that many of the entertainment companies involved are competing heavily to capture audiences. Because of this, the audience has gained a great influence in controlling the tyoe of media they would like to view, and this can be likened to the individual’s lifestyle as well as mindset (Napoli, forthcoming). From the very beginning of the development of media, the main question that has concerned the developers is whether the media has any influence on the audience. It has been proven that different types of media can influence the audience, so that in some cases, when an individual sees an advert of a product on television, he or she will likely purchase the product. On the other hand, there are those of the view that media has no great influence on its audience, since it is they who choose what to watch (Allison, 2006). This article makes a focus on the motives behind the choosing of a particular media type as a basis of the Theory of Audience specially uses and Gratification theory. In the past few decades, the invention and development of the internet has revolutionized the lives of many people in the world and one would argue that it is one of the biggest developments in mass media. Every decade of the twentieth century presented its own theories concerning media communication, and while at the beginning, it was thought that media had an effect on the audience, later with the advancement in media communication, researchers found that audiences only used media for their own benefit (Rossi, 2002). Theory of Audience Uses and Gratifications Katz first proposed the theory of Uses and Gratification and the notion behind this theory is, it focuses on a question why and how people use particular media. In contrast to the effect model view which is what media do with people, U & G is consider as a broader aspect among media researchers who are more concerned about finding what people do with a media (Chandler,1994). This theory is contradictory to the older approach of Audience of a passive group. This theory views the audience as active group which means individuals has power and selects that media text that best suits her needs and her attempts to satisfy the needs. This theory represents the use of media in terms of gratification of social or psychological need of the individual. This theory shifted the approach of gratification from functional paradigm to social sciences (Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch, 1974). Gratification can be derived from three distinct sources which are media content, exposure and social content. The mass media compete with other sources of gratification, but gratifications can be obtained from a medium's content (e.g. watching a specific program), from familiarity with a genre within the medium (e.g. watching soap operas), from general exposure to the medium (e.g. watching TV), and from the social context in which it is used (e.g. watching TV with the family) (Chandler, 1994). Audience spends time using the media for their own benefits such as time killing or socializing. According to Katz, Blunler & Gurevitch (1974) gratification can be derived from three distinct sources which are media content, exposure and social content. The mass media compete with other sources of gratification, but gratifications can be obtained from a medium's content (e.g. watching a specific program), from familiarity with a genre within the medium (e.g. watching soap operas), from general exposure to the medium (e.g. watching TV), and from the social context in which it is used (e.g. watching TV with the family) (Chandler, 1994). According to McQuail (1987) people get four categorize of gratifications from a particular medium. Information: People who want to find out information about society and world and wants to satisfy its curiosity. News, documentaries and reports give audience gratification of learning. Personal Identity: People watch those programs which shape their behavior. For example when they see any character in the film, it helps in deciding what we feel about ourselves. If we like their action and when that character in the end wins we have warm feeling. Entertainment: People use media for enjoyment, relaxation or to kill time. Integration and social interaction: People use media to know about other people and to socialize in the society like using Facebook, MySpace and rout etc. Sometime one program that you watch becomes the reason of interaction with others who watch the same program. According to Katz, Gurevitch & Haas (1973) U&G theory categorized people’s need into five categories. Cognitive needs: Some people have intellectual needs to acquire knowledge from the media for example search engines on internet; people can use them to acquire knowledge. Quiz programs on TV are other source of acquiring knowledge like weather reports and new about current situations. Affective needs: Some people have need of emotions, pleasure and comfort. People mostly use TV to satisfy this need. For example people watch serials and if there is any emotional or sad scene means people used to cry or any love making scene make them to have a pure love. Personal Integrative needs: This need points toward Maslow Hierarchy, need for self-esteem. People use media to support their societal status for example watching Jewellery ads on TV and buying that product changes the life style. So we can say media is actually helping people to change their life style. Social Integrative needs: This need pointed out toward socializing need with family, friends and relations in the society. Now days, people are very busy in work and they don’t have social gathering at weekends. So the only medium they have for gathering is media like the social networking sites like my space, Facebook, Orkut etc. to satisfy their needs. Tension free needs: People uses media to divert their mind and to get relieve from the tension. For example some people get relax by listening to song, some get relax by watching movies. When one considers this, one might look at it from the perspective of personal preference, where an individual will purchase a product not because of the advertisement itself but because of its content. An example of this would be to look at a Gillette advert with the golfer Tiger Woods, as the one promoting it. When one studies the audience and their purchasing behavior afterwards, one will find that there is plenty of difference. For instance, there are some who will buy the product because they are huge fans of Tiger Woods, and they will look at this product (Gillette) as being good because he is promoting it. There are others, however, who will only consider the quality of the product when purchasing it, and will not do so just because Woods is the one who is advertising the product. Reception Analysis This is an extension of Uses and Gratification theory, reception analysis is based on concept that no text has one meaning. It concentrates on audience analysis how they look at the particular text and create their own meaning. When we encounter any text we individually decode it in our way, our mood, the time, place or combination of these factors or all factors matter (Allison, 2006). Audience fall into three categories depending on their way of perceiving text: Preferred reading: This reading is the reading which media producers expect that audience will take from the text. For example McDonalds Big Mac advertisement is intended to encourage hungrily feeling in the audience and tendency to buy a McDonald’s burger next time when they pass by. Oppositional reading: The audience member who are outside target market and they reject the preferred reading and receive or assume their own alternative message. For example Health conscious, anti-globalisation campaigners will respond to McDonald’s ad with frustration and annoyance. Negotiated reading: This is another way that audience perceive preferred reading and modifies it to suit to their own values and opinions. For example McDonald’s Ad might be I love big macs but later on as a treat is all my figure can stand. An example can be made of the music trio, Destiny’s Child making a performance on television. Different people would have different perceptions of this performance, such that for a girl in her teenage, it might be meaningful because of her personality. She might have the feeling that the image of the members of this group has something important to say to her about how she might dress or behave. Her parents, on the other hand, might perceive it as different and he may disprove their way of clothing, behaviour or songs. Consequently, the same performance that girl found inspiring may be unacceptable for her parents. Sometimes our views of media differ with different people, so that the view one might perceive from the text might not be seen by another. In the example mentioned above, the main factor that can be seen is that it worked to create two different ideas in the mind of two different people. The girl, mentioned above may relate to the musical group because she is from the same gender as the members of Destiny’s Child. While they may not be from the same age group it is most likely that she has the desires to become like Destiny’s Child when she reaches their age (Allison, 2006). Case Study: The internet is one of the most influential developments of the modern world mainly because it affects the lives of almost everybody in the world. It is fast becoming a major source of information with many people relying on it to get news from all over the world, for research, to do market research and make purchases and to keep in touch with one another over great distances. The internet provides a powerful tool for online resources and is an information dissemination tool for many people in the world. Internet has grown in its use, the amount of information, and its online communication available from that time to now (Harris, 2006). The internet is one of the most influential developments of the modern world mainly because it affects the lives of almost everybody in the world. It is fast becoming a major source of information with many people relying on it to get news from all over the world, for research, to do market research and make purchases and to keep in touch with one another over great distances. Social networking has developed on the internet and it has become big business for those who run these companies since they charge people to pay to advertise on their websites (Shao, 2006). According to Nielseon (2006) five of the ten fastest growing websites in the United States are social network sites and such an increase in the pace of internet media has revolutionized people’s media consumption. An example of this is YouTube, which has become a market leader in online video and according to a study conducted by Hitwise, showed that the market share of this website was at least five times more than that going to other broadcasting sites, and this can be seen to be quite a significant number (Prescott, 2007). Many politicians and businesses have also embraced the internet in order to sell a better image of themselves to the public. Politicians use the internet for their campaigns because it has many users and these will be able to easily access the message which the politicians are trying to pass across. On the other hand, businesses are using the internet no only for the purpose of advertising their products but also for transactions between them and their customers. (Shao, 2006). Social networking sites fall into the category known as User generated media (UGM), which have come to be widely used all over the world. Several questions have been raised by researchers concerning various uses of internet today, and these include; what are the reasons behind this increasing trend of people toward Internet Media? Why and how do people use these User generated internet sites? According to Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch (1974), the Uses and Gratification theory is a presentation of media usage according to the needs of the audience viewing it. It has been found that individuals have a tendency of choosing the medium which will fulfil their needs and that has become one of the reasons for deciding media. Therefore, it can be said that one of main objectives of Uses and Gratification theory as has been stated above is to have an understanding of individual behaviours towards media and to identify functions or consequences that follow from needs, aims and conduct of the individuals involved. Motives from the perspective of Uses and Gratification Theory As discussed in a previous section one individual might get different gratification from the same source whereas other individual gets different. Individual deals with these users generated Internet sites in three ways, by consuming, by participating and by producing (Shao, 2006). Consuming represents those people who only watch, read or view particular media but never participated in it. Participating represents those individuals who consume as well as participate in a particular media such as rating the content, adding playing list, sharing information of professionals on different blogs etc. Producing represent those individual who share their own personal content such as personal images, audio, video of enjoying with friends and texts. Uses and Gratification theory explains the increase usage of the user generated internet sites as follows (Shao, 2006). Information Seeking and Entertainment for Consuming As with traditional media and entertainment, individual go to user generated internet sites to consume different contents such as videos, blogs, music and pictures. It is reported in 2007, 51 percent of consumer in America watched and read content created by others on social networking sites specially Facebook, MySpace and YouTube and 71% out of these 51 percent is youth (August et al., 2007). Uses and Gratification theory on traditional media and new media has revealed two typical motives for media consumption namely Information seeking and Entertainment, which also help us out in finding out about consumption of user generated internet sites. Information seeking is driven by people to increase awareness and knowledge of one self and to know about the world (Shao, 2006). This can be seen from the people often visit to Wikipedia to get information about subjects that specifically interest them. It is common practice in Universities and colleges. Students whenever they have to make assignments; they go to Wikipedia for the information that interest them. It is also seen that people are increasingly using Facebook and MySpace to learn how to make sense of things from their peer about any subject (Bowman & Willis, 2003). Likewise traditional Media such as Television, Cinemas and Magazines, people use user generated internet sites for Entertainment such as escaping from problems, relaxing, killing time, seeking emotional release and sexual arouses. For most people entertainment and mass media are nearly synonymous (Shao, 2006). Take an example of YouTube, most of the popular channels come from the entertainment related categories such as entertainment, sports, music, comedy and film and animation. Entertainment on YouTube is considered as buffet of Snacks videos for those people who don’t have much time and seek entertainment for relaxation. YouTube limit each video to a few minutes clips for entertainment seeker. You tubes provide millions of videos to user on a daily basis including comedy, films, animation, music, news, sports and so on. So that individual can go on and relax by playing some entertaining clips and through this method individual bring back their physiological arousal back to optimal. YouTube can also be seen as convergence of the Traditional Entertainment choices of TV, Music and Films because users of YouTube see much broader range of choices than those of Traditional media (Shao, 2006). Social Interaction for Participating From their inception, social networks such as Facebook have been considered to be tools through which friends can interact with each other. These are places where people post pictures of themselves, and their friends can send private or public messages to each other, and most of all, they can get news about what is happening in the world. Similar to email, social networks have made communication between people in different parts of the world easier; in fact, they can be considered to be a much more effective means of communications between friends than email. These interactions are among the different ways of fulfilling the social needs in the aspect of Uses and Gratification theory (Chan, 2006). There are many positive aspects of interactions in social networks, because they are among the most easily accessible websites on the internet today. They can be received not only from computers, but also from any appliance which can access the internet. This has ensured that the majority of their users are always available at whatever time they are needed. The easy accessibility of these networks has also enabled people to conduct business through them (McKenna et al., 2002); moreover, it has enabled its users to give constant updates of what they are up to, while their friends make comments concerning such updates. When one considers social networking from this point of view, one can conclude that they are public journals, where one records events from their life and their feelings about such events (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). According to Mckenna et al (2002) social networks have made interaction between people in different parts of the world easier, because there is no longer any need to have physical contact for communication to take place. Instead, they have made communication virtual, with more people subscribing to the use of social network sites to communicate every day. Social networks have effectively ensured that the need for human beings to socialize has been satisfied, as well as enabled those individuals who use them to be able to communicate with large numbers of people at the same time (Tossberg, 2000). Thus, through joining virtual communities people may get a sense of communication and have feeling of belonging. One of the biggest examples of social interaction on the social networking site is Egyptian revolution which started on Facebook and resulted in the end of long era of dictatorship, and this has made social networks to become a tool for social change. Self-Expression and Self-Actualization Some people produce and publish their own content such as pictures, blogs and videos on the user generated sites to seek gratification of Self-Expression and Self-Actualization. According to a recent survey, in America 40% of the consumer are creating their own content. Youth aged 13-24 are the majority of creator having a total of 56% share (August et al., 2007). It is also seen that everyday 65,000 new videos are uploaded to YouTube and more than 6 million photos to Facebook. According to the U&G theory, self-actualization and self-expression needs are the motive behind this creation of personal stuff. Self-expression refers to the expression of one’s own identity. On User generated internet sites, such need be fulfilled through video and picture sharing, self-presentation activities which allows people to know who you are and how you present yourself. In addition to self-expression, another important factor is self-actualization which can be defined as working on one’s own identity and reflecting one’s personality (Trepte, 2005). Self-Actualization is a psychological motive which stimulates behavioural goals of recognition seeking, frame or personal efficacy (Rheingold, 1993). Some people desires for fame and they get it through uploading videos of Facebook and YouTube. Take an example of LA based singer Terra Naomi, she has used YouTube as a channel to sing directly to audience since February 2006. Due to such an exposure, she improved herself from a struggling singer to major label darling for Island Records (Rivera, 2007). This happens all due to huge audience traffic on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. The supporter of U &G theory believes that audience is active and selects only that media which is very beneficial for them in terms of their own needs. In reality this theory helped professional practitioner a lot because it explained the growing gratification trend of people toward modern media and let practitioners know what are the current trend of audience are and how they can easily approach them. For example People these days watch more videos on YouTube then TV. Movie makers whenever they have to release a Trailer of upcoming movie they first upload on YouTube and other sites then play it on TV or Cable channels. Traditional media landscape has changed and replaced by internet. The U & G theory is very much successful in explaining about motivational and gratification factor behind choosing Internet as media over other media. The U & G scholars have to expand their theory by including Interactivity, demassification, hypertextuality and asynchroneity in their theoretical models (Ruggiero, 2000). If they are able to modify it then U & G theory would be a highly serviceable theory of 21st century. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be said that the Uses and Gratification theory helps individuals to have an increased understanding of the increased usage of user generated internet sites and why people are currently using this type of media. U &G Theory denies implied passive nature of audiences towards media, and it instead provides the idea of the audience being active and being people who can chose the type of media which satisfy them according to their needs. Therefore, because of the need brought about by people seeking for different means of gratification, user generated sites have come to absolutely change the traditional media landscape and has attracted a diverse audience. Moreover, people prefer user generated sites to the traditional media in order to fulfill their different motives due to their far-reaching influence to information and entertainment seekers. Individuals take benefit of social interaction with human beings through posted content, as it enhances social connection as well as make one to be involved in building virtual communities according to the interest. Moreover, social networks such as Facebook and MySpace have come to influence the lives of many people all over the world, as it has enabled the instant interaction of people on different points of the globe with remarkably little effort being put in it. They have also brought people together from different cultures into a global forum. Therefore, one would be tempted to speculate that social networks have contributed to world peace through their promotion of cultural understanding among different people globally. Finally, they have also revolutionized how people live since what was previously considered private information is now being publicly shared within these networks. 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