Uses & Gratifications of our Music Video

George & Kamal

Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication in media. The theory focuses more on the consumer, instead of the actual media product itself by asking “what people do with media” rather than “what media does to people” -- suggested by Katz in 1959 . It assumes that members of the audience take an active role in interpreting media products in their own way and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also suggests that the audience choose certain media products in order to fulfil certain aspects of their lives.

This leads to Blumler & Gurevitchs theorisation in 1974, suggesting that because of the audiences personal decision on why they use media products, the actual products must compete against each other in order to gain viewers gratification over alternate sources of entertainment or information.

WHAT IS IT?

A Basic OutlineI was theorised that the media product must take form of one of the following when being used by the audience, explaining why they decided to use it in the first place.

Identify- being able to recognise the product or person in front of you, role models that reflect similar values to yours, or your aspiration to be someone else

Educate - being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding

Entertain – What you are consuming should be enjoyable and also some form of ‘escapism’ enabling us to forget any stress or troubles in reality temporarily

Social Interaction – the ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between other people, sparking debates or agreements , for example a characters death in a weekly TV show.

Uses and gratification theory can be seen in cases such as personal music selection, with the idea that we choose different genres of music to reflect what type of mood we are in, or to fill a certain motive in our lives, whether social needs or physical desires.

For example, those who listen to House may have unconscious desires to be in party style environments even when not. People who listen to pop may have unconscious desires to fit in with the rest of society, since this is the most popular genre at this moment in time. Those who listen to Indie, Emo, Alternative etc. may have unconscious desires to either ‘Break the mould’ and challenge social norms, or may potentially look for an emotional escape when listening to music.

Examples With Music

Examples with the InternetOver the past 10 years the internet has played a large part in changing the way the uses and gratifications theory is perceived

Internet allows us to identify more products and people, due to search engines like Google we can search for anything, enabling the audience to be educated on a regular basis.

Music has benefited because of websites like YouTube enabling us to watch any music video we choose on demand, practically anywhere we go, giving us limitless entertainment

Wikipedia and other factual websites enables us to learn whenever we like, it could be argued that the internet alone has developed our education massively in the last 10 years, more than anything could have years before this.

4od, YouTube , Twitch etc. are just a few of the numerous websites that give us an opportunity to be entertained whenever we please via videos or TV shows

Facebook, blogs and other social websites enable us to socialise while online Internet enables us to have freedom and escape all our troubles at the click of a button, releasing us from the daily grind of life.

CRITICISMS OF THE THEORYMany people have criticized this theory as they believe the public has no control over the media and what it produces, and that the producers only make what they feel is best to, when in reality, for most big companies, the audience is the primary focus in driving them to create whatever they do.

The theory takes out the possibility that the media can have an unconscious influence over our lives and how we view the world.  The idea that we simply use the media to satisfy a given desire does not seem to fully recognize the power of the media in today’s society, and how it can control us, not just vice versa.

However this theory may be more relevant in modern society as the internet and TV such as Sky enables us to have much more freedom and control over what we consume in relation to the pre- internet era, making the difference in who has more control over the other a hard point to make.