Theoretical position paper towards uses and gratifications theory
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The increasingly rapid development of digital technology during the past thirty years
has renewed scholars’ interest in applying the uses and gratifications theory to the new media
field. Uses and gratifications theory rooted in early research that studied media functions and
reactions of the audience (Herzog, 1944; Lasswell, 1948; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955).
However, the early research was criticized for lacking theoretical coherence (McQuail, 1994).
Later, by analyzing reasons that audiences watch political television, scholars found there are
several motives for seeking information (Blumler & McQuail, 1969). In 1972, Denis
McQuail, Jay Blumler, and Joseph Brown suggested that there are four basic divisions of
media use, which formed a key foundation for uses and gratifications theory. The main
assumptions of uses and gratifications theory were proposed by Elihu Katz and his colleagues
(1974), who have been regarded as the main founders of uses and gratification theory.
According to Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch (1974, p.510), uses and gratifications focus on
the social and psychological origins of (2) needs, which generate (3) expectations of
(4) the mass media or other sources, which lead to (5) differential patterns of media
exposure (or engagement in other activities), resulting in (6) need gratifications and
(7) other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones.
During the past decades, scholars have long debated whether uses and gratifications
meet the standard necessary to be a communication theory or not. Critics such as McQuaid
(1994) argue that the theoretical model lacks internal consistency, and the data collection
method relies too much on self-reports. In this paper, I am going to analyze the theorical
model of uses and gratifications theory by examining its key elements, such as concepts,
relationships and mechanisms, and evaluate uses and gratifications theory based on the
quality criteria of good theory (Chaffee & Berger, 1987; Wacker, 1998).
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Analysis
Scope and Application
As a theory that stresses the media uses and effects, the scope of uses and
gratifications should be the use of all kinds of media and media content according to users’
needs (Ruggiero, 2000). However, the early studies of uses and gratifications mainly focused
on media functions that were elicited from the respondent and tried to “group gratification
statements into labelled categories”, ignoring to explore the relationship between users’
media uses and gratifications (Katz et al., 1974, p. 509). Later, scholars such as Blumler
(1985, p. 41) argued that the scope of uses and gratifications can be extended from “emphasis
on using mass media to meet social deficits, to the function it fulfills”. Furthermore, some
scholars (Samuels, 1984; Lull, 1995) introduced the psychological meaning of needs and
gratifications, helping researchers understand how human needs are gratified. Alan Rubin
(1994) pointed out that the uses and gratifications research had shifted from a mechanical
perspective that focuses on media functions to a psychological perspective that emphasizes
individual media use.
As for the levels of analysis, uses and gratifications often be recognized as a micro-
level theory, considering uses and gratifications research mainly focus on individuals.
Although uses and gratifications theory relies on individual data collection, scholars have
shifted from a micro perspective to a macroanalysis that different levels of analysis such as
group, organizational and societal can also be included (Ruggiero, 2000). In current studies,
individual data are also analyzed in a broader context, including psychological and social
elements. Based on the scope, uses and gratifications theory can be applied to all media uses
and users research, and with the development of digital technology, the topics for uses and
gratifications study also multiplies (Ruggiero, 2000).
