The uses of mass communications : current perspectives on gratifications research

FOREWORDTHE PLAN UNDERLYING THIS VOLUME OF ESSAYS on the quses andngratifications approachq to mass communication research is relatively straightforwardnand may be readily grasped by consulting the table of contents. Innfilling in the envisaged structure we, as editors, were happily afflicted with annembarrassment of riches. The opening chapter is a preliminary guidelines paperthat was originally composed by ourselves and Michael Gurevitch in April 1973nwith two aims in mind: first, to summarize the achievements of uses andngratifications inquiries to date; and second, to propose an agenda for discussionnof the future direction of this approach in terms of a set of theoretical,nmethodological, and substantive issues that needed more systematic attentionnthan they had been given in the past. Essays were solicited, then, according tonthe criterion of their likely contribution -- through the presentation of newnempirical evidence (Part II of the book) or the development of original analyticalnargument (Part III) -- to a clarification of some of the problems posed in thenopening overview. It was never our intention, however, to lay down thenprospectus or philosophic foundations of a single and closely articulated schoolnof thought. The reader of the ensuing pages will soon discover that they contain,nand do not pretend to resolve, many of the vigorous controversies that have beennprovoked by this lively tradition of mass communication research.One conclusion that we would firmly draw from the writings we havencommissioned is that the uses and gratifications approach is well and trulynlaunched on a third major phase of its development: a sort of coming of age.nPerhaps it is not overly simple to suggest that, in its qchildhoodq of the 1940snand 1950s, the core emphasis of much work in this vein was on insightfulndescription of audience subgroup orientations to selected media content forms.nThe outcomes of this early research seemed mainly to illuminate vividlynsomething of the qfeelq and quality of audience attachment to mass communicationnin its own right. Then, in the qadolescenceq of the late 1960s, thencore emphasis of many studies was switched to an operationalization of thensocial and psychological variables presumed to give rise to differentiated patternsnof media consumption. And the outcomes of such work mainly held out thenpromise that the tendencies for audience members to seek certain satisfactionsnfrom media content could be measured and deployed in quantitative analysis. Ifnwe are not mistaken to discern an entry into maturity in the 1970s, then its corentendency probably centers in turn on attempts to use gratifications data tonprovide explanations of such other facets of the communication process withnwhich audience motives and expectations may be connected. Of course thisnroute of progress is still incompletely mapped and explored, but it appears tonhave two major branches. The empirical section of this book provides severalnsignificant examples of both. Thus, several studies attempt to establish that annunderstanding of patterns of gratifications is prerequisite to an understanding ofnmedia effects. This idea is well supported by the findings of both Kline et al. andnof McLeod and Becker. Some of Greenberg's evidence suggestively associatesnescape and arousal motives for TV use among children with the growth ofnaggressive dispositions and (in the latter case) a liking for violent content.The other branch of explanatory study strives to anchor the motivations andngratifications associated with media consumption to more systematic formulationsnof social and psychological qneeds.q Brown et al., for example, taking anfresh look at the displacement effects of television, seek to place thengratifications of children in the middle of a complex chain involving externalnchanges in the communication environment, internal changes in audiencenneed states (such as those resulting from maturation), and the efforts ofnproducers and merchandisers of media content to cater to new needs as well asnto find new ways of serving old needs. Likewise, the paper by Peled and Katznexplores media use in the light of sociological theory about the functions ofnmass media for society, and for a society in crisis in particular.n n n n n n