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Mass media: effects research - uses and gratifications
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Mass media: effects research - uses and gratifications
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Surveillance means the need to find out what's going on in the world around us. In terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this can be seen as relating to the need for security, since knowledge brings security. The unknown is a source of danger. The more we know about our environment, the more secure it is likely to be for us. This is not to say that the most natural course of action would be to stay indoors all day so as to avoid any danger to ourselves; quite the contrary - since there is evidence that we are motivated by a natural curiosity about the world around us. There would appear to be a trade-off between the need to minimize the risks to ourselves by finding out about our environment and the risks which we inevitably subject ourselves to in the process of finding out.
The need for knowledge suggests that we would probably be most likely to use such media output as newspapers, news programmes, specialist magazines, current affairs programmes, science programmes, the Internet, arts programmes and so on, as well as books, of course, in order to gratify this need.
However, it's worth bearing in mind that the media themselves are part of what's going on in the world (indeed some postmodern thinkers would be prepared to say that there's no distinction between the world and the media). So, for example, watching a TV soap gratifies our need for surveillance, too. British soaps, of course, in the 'public service' tradition do generally give 'information' - on the latest social security developments, the availability of pensioners' Christmas bonuses and so on - but that's not the only kind of surveillance meant here. By watching a soap, we learn about what is a major part of our and nineteen million other people's 'worlds'. This need is one we see reflected in the popular dailies, much of whose editorial space is given over to 'news' about the soaps and the actors in them.
Personal identity
Personal relationships
Diversion
Criticism of uses and gratifications research
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