1. The Social Media Revolution 2011
The social media YouTube video shown as part of this presentation was created by Erick Qualman.

2. Do we consume media or does media consume us?
Duke Woodley, Judy Grados, Daniel Munhoz and Ilse Genovese Uses and Gratification Theory Group Project Montgomery College /USG, 2012
Do we consume media or does media consume us?

3. UGT LET’S FIND OUT What do you think?
Do we consume media or does media consume us?
LET’S FIND OUT
UGT

4. What’s UGT about?
How and why people select certain media to satisfy their needs and interests. Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch (1974)

5. Some history Functional theories on communication — 1920s-1940s
Limited Effects Paradigm — 1950s-1970s
Uses and Gratification Theory— 1974-todate
FUNCTIONAL PARADIGM: people are not smart enough to protect themselves from the information media “injects” into their consciousness—the famous hypodermic needle effect.
In the Mass Society era, people were viewed as PASSIVE CONSUMERS of media.
Example: Orwellian prophecy (1884): Spying on you, watching your every move, drilling propaganda into your head twenty-four hours each day, every day of the week.
LIMITED EFFECTS PARADIGM: perpetuates the idea that people have little personal choice on what they consume, BUT their personal traits and social standing do limit media effects on them. People were becoming more educated, they became more conscious users of media ..to achieve a goal or a purpose.
Example: soap opera fan; sports fan; political junkie urbanites, rural populations; age; opinion leaders interpret media message for the masses (Walter Cronkite’s negative message about Vietnam; broadcast journalist, 2009, CBS anchorman of Evening News)
People were becoming more educated.
USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY– power shifted from the media message to the audience member / receiver. Revolutionary; logical progression from the limited effects and functional theories.
Example: If I don’t like the news program on channel 24, I go to BBC America or msnbc.

6. QUIZ
Which mass media do you use?
Why?

7. Important Research
McQuail, Blumler, Brown’s four categories of media uses (1972)
Katz. Blumler, Gurevitch’s research on selective attitudes to mass media (1973-4)
Herzog’s typology of reasons for watching soap operas, 1944
Schramm’s Fraction of Selection (1954)
Blumler and McQuail’s study of motives for watching political TV programs (1969)
Maslow’s pyramid of needs and motivation (1970) The Uses and Gratification Theory is an extension of Maslow’s Needs and Motivation Theory (Maslow 1970)

8. Reasons for media use PASS TIME COMPANIONSHIP EXCITEMENT ESCAPE
ENJOYMENT
SOCIAL INTERACTION
RELAXATION
OBTAINING INFORMATION
LEARNING ABOUT SPECIFIC CONTENT

9. Gratifications obtained via media use
Parasocial interaction Diversion
Personal relationships
Personal identity
Surveillance

10. Changing media uses
Videogaming NOW and BEFORE

11. Key UGT assumptions
1. The audience is active and its media use is goal oriented
People are motivated to seek out specific media outlets to satisfy their felt needs and desires. Audiences have a FREE WILL in deciding WHICH media they will use and for WHAT purpose.
Under “media” we group movies, radio, web surfing--anything that gives the user a tension release or escape from the 9 to 5 rat race.
Let’s ask my colleagues :
Ilse: What are your primary uses for television? Give your reasons for choosing certain programming, and what do you get out of watching them? What are the advantages of watching TV ?

12. Key UGT assumptions
2. The initiative of picking a specific medium to satisfy a specific need rests with the audience member

13. 3. The media compete with other media sources for need satisfaction
Key UGT assumptions
3. The media compete with other media sources for need satisfaction

14. Key UGT assumptions
4. People have a pretty good idea of what motivates their media use, and can accurately describe this to researchers

15. Key UGT assumptions
5. Value judgments of media content can only be assessed by the audience

16. The Active Audience
Media consumers can engage in the following types of activity. UTILITY INTENTIONALITY SELECTIVITY IMPERVIOUSNESS TO INFLUENCE
An active audience seeks out specific media to satisfy self-identified needs and by doing so facilitate, curtail, or otherwise influence media effects (gratifications)7.

17. Audience-centered theory: Audiences have free will in choosing media.
To sum up
Audience-centered theory:
Audiences have free will in choosing media.
The power rests with the media user.
Katz et al’s UGT represents a subtle shift from THINGS MEDIA DO THE PEOPLE to the THINGS PEOPLE DO WITH MEDIA

18. Your turn to talk about media
Which mass media you prefer?
Why?

19. Integration Communication Tradition: Socio-Psychological
Communication Context: Mass/Media
Approach to knowing: Positivistic/Empirical
Socio-Psychological tradition: tries to find causal links between audience and media.—who consumes who.
Mass Media context: looks at various channels of delivery of mass messages. Includes “new” (computer-related) technology.
Approach to knowing: assumes the existence of objective reality and value – neutral research.

20. Theory critique
“… crassly atheoretical, perversely eclectic, ensnared in the pitfalls of functionalism and flirting with the positions at odds with their functionalist origins.” (Blumler 1979)
“Practitioners of Uses and Gratifications research have been criticized for a formidable array of shortcomings in their outlook—they are taxed for being crassly atheoretical, perversely eclectic, ensnared in the pitfalls of functionalism and for flirting with the positions at odds with their functionalist origins.” (Blumler 1979)
Logical Consistency
Lack of theoretical coherence
Vague in key concepts (Line between gratification [desire] and satisfaction [enjoyment] blurred)
A data collecting strategy, but the data are often hard to extrapolate
Difficult to predict how an individual or a group of individuals will perceive a given media outlet (creators vs consumers of media content).
Relies on memory recollections and self-reporting: often immeasurable.
Utility
Active audience? Much media use is circumstantial and weakly motivated.
Seems to work best in examining specific types of media with clear motivations
Highly individualistic
Heurism
Has a clear heuristic nature

21. Theory critique Is there an Active Audience?
Lack of theoretical coherence
Some terminology needs to be better defined.
Reliance on the functional use of media; the danger is, the media can be reckless.
Is there an Active Audience?
Some researchers (Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) note that people report that their television watching in particular is passive and requires little concentration.
The theory seems to highlight a reasoned media consumer, one who does not accept everything the media present.
The theory does not take into consideration the fact that individuals may not have considered all available choices in media consumption.
The theory does not pay attention to the myriad unconscious decisions made by individuals.
Denis McQuail (1984) believes that the theory suffers from a lack of theoretical coherence.
He thinks that some of the theory's terminology needs to be further defined.
He also notes that the theory relies too heavily on the functional use of media, because there are times when the media can be reckless. [Video : ]
There have been instances of sloppy, inaccurate, or unethical journalism: In 1999, a Kentucky journalist was fired after falsely reporting that she had AIDS; in the late 1990s there was an erroneous CNN report about the U.S.government's knowledge of its military's use of poisonous gas in Vietnam. What if the active consumer sought out these media for information about AIDS or the U.S.involvement in Vietnam?
This irresponsibility of the media is not addressed in the theory.
Misspelled News example. This is an example of how the media can be reckless.

22. Thank you . You are definitely an audience that will not let media consume you.
Questions?