AUDIENCE THEORIES: FROM SOURCE-DOMINATED TO ACTIVE AUDIENCE THEORIES

TALLINN UNIVERSITYMEDIA THEORIES classGROUP 10

Islam Muhammad Hira Okutan Martin Merimaa Anett Naruskberg

ARE WE AN ACTIVE MEDIA AUDIENCE?Do we as people put specific media and specific media content to specific use in the hopes of having some specific need or set of needs gratified.

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY• Approach to media study focusing on the uses to which people

put media and the gratifications they seek from those uses.

• How people use different mediums and why (what kind of reward they get from the medium/what makes them choose one medium to another).

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORYHerta Herzog is often credited as the originator of this approach, although she most likely did not give it its label.

It's an approach to understanding why people actively seek out specific media outlets and content for gratification purposes. The theory discusses how users proactively search for media that will not only meet a given need but enhance knowledge, social interaction and diversion.

It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The approach suggests that people use the media to fulfill specific gratifications/needs

Most are source-dominated theories. They center their attention primarily on message sources and content, not on the audiences the sources want to influence. As media theories have developed, this focus has gradually shifted.

FRACTION OF SELECTION

Schramm’s graphic description of how individuals make media and content choices based on expectation of reward and effort required

His point was that people weigh the level of reward (gratification) they expect from a given medium or message against how much effort they must make to secure that reward.

You can develop your own fractions for your own media use of all kinds, but the essence of Schramm’s argument remains: we all make decisions about which content we choose based on our expectations of having some need met

REVIVAL OF THE USES AND GRATIFICATIONS APPROACHThe first revival happened in 1970’s as response to other types of media research findings which were inconsequential and overqualified. Researches were confused by the lack of effect media had on subjects.

REVIVAL OF THE USES AND GRATIFICATIONS APPROACH

The first revival of the uses and gratifications approach can be traced to three developments:

1. New survey research methods and data analysis techniques allowed the development of important new strategies for studying and interpreting audience uses and gratifications.

2. Some media researchers developed increasing awareness that people’s active use of media might be an important mediating factor making effects more or less likely.

3. Some researchers began expressing growing concern that effects research was focusing too much on unintended negative effects of media while intended positive uses of media were being ignored.

The second revival is currently taking place:

This time the revival came with the development and diffusion of new Internet applications. Thomas Ruggiero identified three characteristics of computer-mediated mass communication for uses-and-gratifications researchers to examine:

• Interactivity significantly strengthens the core uses-and-gratifications notion of active user

• Demassification is the ability of the media user to make a selection between a variety of things

• Asynchroneity means that mediated messages may be staggered in time.

Researchers have found that the uses-and-gratifications method is helpful in studying a wide range of new media, like emails.

For example: Boneva, Kraut, and Frohlich report that women find e-mail more useful than do men in maintaining social relationships. They demonstrated increasing use of e-mail by women to keep in touch with family and friends.

Uses-and gratifications theory may prove to be essential in assessing how and why various computer-based or wireless communication services are used to supplement and in some cases replace older media.

REVIVAL OF THE USES AND GRATIFICATIONS APPROACH

Basicly, Active audience theory argues that media audiences do not just receive information passively b.ut are actively involved, often unconsciously, in making sense of the message within their personal and social contexts

Jay G. Blumler (1979) claimed that one problem in the development of a strong uses-and-gratifications tradition is the “extraordinary range of meanings” given to the concept of activity. He identified several meanings for the term, including the following:

• Utility: Media have uses for people, and people can put media to those uses.

• Intentionality: Consumption of media content can be directed by people’s prior motivations.

• Selectivity: People’s use of media might reflect their existing interests and preferences.

• Imperviousness to influence: Audience members are often obstinate; they might not want to be controlled by anyone or anything, even mass media. Audience members actively avoid certain types of media influence.

THE ACTIVE AUDIENCE REVISED

THE ACTIVE AUDIENCE REVISED (conti.)The classic articulation of this ,is the one offered by Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler, and Michael Gurevitch (1974):

1. The audience is active and its media use is goal-oriented.

2. The initiative in linking need gratification to a specific media choice rests with the audience member.

3. The media compete with other sources of need satisfaction.

4. People are aware enough of their own media use, interests, and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate picture of that use.

5. Value judgments regarding the audience’s linking its needs to specific media or content should be suspended.

THE ACTIVE AUDIENCE REVISED (conti.)

• Social situations can produce tensions and conflicts, leading to pressure for their easement through media consumption.

• Social situations can create an awareness of problems that demand attention, information about which might be sought in the media.

• Social situations can impoverish real-life opportunities to satisfy certain needs, and the media can serve as substitutes or supplements.

• Social situations often elicit specific values, and their affirmation and reinforcement can be facilitated by the consumption of related media materials.

• Social situations can provide realms of expectations of familiarity with media, which must be met to sustain membership in specific social groups.

Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch (1974, p. 27) argued that the “social situations” that people find themselves in, can be “involved in the generation of media-related needs” like:

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS RESEARCH AND EFFECTS Uses and Gratifications Theory

Strengths Weaknesses 1. Focuses attention on

individuals in the mass communication process

2. Respects intellect and ability of media consumers

3. Provides insightful analyses of how people experience media content

4. Differentiates active uses of media from more passive uses

5. Studies the use of media as a part of everyday social interaction

6. Provides useful insight into adoption of new media

1. Cannot easily address the presence or absence of effects

2. Relies on functional analysis, which can create a bias toward the status quo

3. Many of its key concepts are criticized as unmeasurable

4. Is too oriented toward the micro-level

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS RESEARCH AND EFFECTS (cont.)As Uses and Gratifications Research tends to ignore the possibility of Effects, as one of its weaknesses, many researchers dismissed it as interesting but ultimately of little value.

Renewed interest in uses-and-gratifications developed when there was greater interest in effects perspectives, so it is no surprise that theorists are now focusing more on what unites rather than separates the two schools of thought.

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS RESEARCH AND EFFECTS (cont.)

Sven Windahl (1981) argued that a merger of uses-and-gratifications research and the effects traditions was overdue and proposed what he called a “uses and effects” model that viewed the product of the use of media content as “conseffects.”

Philip Palmgreen, Lawrence A. Wenner, Karl Erik RosengrenIn a similar vein, Palmgreen, Wenner, and Rosengren (1985) wrote, “Studies have shown that a variety of audience gratifications (again, both sought and obtained) are related to a wide spectrum of media effects, including knowledge, dependency, attitudes, perceptions of social reality, agenda-setting, discussion, and various political effects variables” (p. 31).

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS RESEARCH AND EFFECTS (cont.)

Jay G Blumler

Blumler also presented his ideas on how the uses-and-gratifications and effects approaches could be harmonized. His perspective still centers responsibility for the control of effects with the consumer rather than the media. He wrote:

“How might propositions about media effects be generated from … gratifications? First, we may postulate that cognitive motivation will facilitate information gain…. Second, media consumption for purposes of diversion and escape will favour audience acceptance of perceptions of social situations in line with portrayals frequently found in entertainment materials…. Third, involvement in media materials for personal identity reasons is likely to promote reinforcement effects.” (1979, pp. 18–19)

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS RESEARCH AND EFFECTS (cont.)Alan Rubin

Rubin (2009, p. 172) writes that “the primary difference between the two traditions” is that:

• Effects researchers most often examine the mass communication process from the source’s perspective, while

• Uses and gratifications people begin with the audience member.

But both “seek to explain the outcomes or consequences of communication such as attitude or perception formation (e.g., cultivation, third-person effects), behavioral changes (e.g., dependency), and societal effects (knowledge gaps).

Uses and gratifications does so, however, recognizing the greater potential for audience initiative, choice, and activity”

CONCLUSIONTo conclude, we look at our daily routine of media uses and gratification, we see that media outlets are doing their best to serve us the way we want, according to our needs and the way we would like to reward ourselves with.

User Experience departments within media outlets are utilizing U&G to better serve their audiences. We now have Netflix, Hulu, News on Demand, Tailored News Apps…etc. that are customised to our uses.

It is increasingly become more evident that Active Audience theory has been gaining importance in the past couple of years with the increasing usage of social media and the upsurge in user-generated contents available to everyone on the Internet that in some case, influence traditional media themselves.