Mass media: effects research - uses and gratifications

Uses and Gratifications

Personal relationships

It might seem daft to talk about personal relationships in our use of the media, but we can certainly gratify those social needs (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs) via our media use:

• We can find out how other people live.
• We can identify with people in the media and thus gain a sense of belonging.
• We can use the media as a source of things to talk to other people about - I can remember a highly intellectual colleague who refused to have a TV in his home while his children were little. As soon as they started school, though, he went out and bought one because they were isolated from other schoolchildren, as they hadn't a clue about any of the programmes the others talked about.

You might perhaps also think that television can serve as a focus for interaction between family members, who sit together in front of the television, making rude comments about the people on it, jointly engaging in criticism of the behaviour they see, swapping anecdotes that the TV action has reminded them of and so on. Though this may be the case with certain viewers, in certain contexts, watching certain types of TV output, it generally seems to be the case that TV reduces conversation. In a study by Walters and Stone (1971) cited in Gunter and Svennevig (1987), 52% of respondents reported that there was little or no talking while the television was on.

Isolated people, perhaps the unemployed, the elderly, can use the media as a substitute for companions in real life. One old lady I knew even made cups of tea for people on TV. She didn't seem to be upset that they never drank them, incidentally. That's a bit extreme, perhaps, but we can all think of how we interact with people on TV, even if it's only 'You must be blind, ref!'. I love to tell the Prime Minister to shut up and stop being so silly. Other people will tell their favourite soap characters what to do next. Some even interact so closely with fictional characters that they send wreaths to the TV studio when one of them dies.

This use of TV is supported by Kubey's research (1986), which shows that TV can provide solace for individuals going through a bad patch, expecially when they are on their own. The divorced and separated wtahced television when feeling down and alone, television being used to fill the empty time. Kubey suggests that TV can provide companionship and distraction when people are feeling low, reflecting on their problems and having no one else to turn to.

That kind of interaction with media personalities is what's sometimes known as 'parasocial interaction', but we can use the media for genuine social interaction. TV can be a focus for the family or friendship group; the daily paper can be passed around at work and commented on.

Much depends - by definition - on the characteristics of the individual or group of people using the medium. Some researchers have, for example, distinguished between

• socio-oriented family groups, where parents encourage their children to maintain a harmonious climate of personal relationships and avoid arguments and any form of controversial expression or behaviour (more typical of working-class family groups);
• concept-oriented family groups, where children are invited to express their ideas and feelings, even if controversial, and to challenge the ideas of others (more typical of middle-class family groups).

Chaffee, McLeod and Wackman (1973), cited in Gunter and Svennevig (1987)

Socio-oriented families have been shown to be more likely to use TV as a resource for the accomplishment of interpersonal objectives at home, whereas concept-oriented families see television as not being useful to them as a social resource.

(For comments on the actual use of television in the family, see the section on David Morley)

Please select from the following:

Surveillance

Personal identity

Diversion

Criticism of uses and gratifications research

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