The Uses and Gratification approach focuses on why people use particular media rather than on content. In contrast to the concern of the 'media effects' tradition with 'what media do to people' (which assumes a homogeneous mass audience and a 'hypodermic' view of media), Uses and Gratification can be seen as part of a broader trend amongst media researchers which is more concerned with 'what people do with media', allowing for a variety of responses and interpretations.
The theory has been criticized as being individualistic and psychologistic, tending to ignore the socio-cultural context. As a theoretical stance it foregrounds individual psychological and personality factors and backgrounds sociological interpretations. For instance, David Morley (1992) acknowledges that individual differences in interpretation do exist, but he stresses the importance of subcultural socio-economic differences in shaping the ways in which people interpret their experiences with TV (via shared 'cultural codes'). Uses and Gratification theorists tend to exaggerate active and consciouschoice, whereas media can be forced on some people rather than freely chosen. The stance can also lead to the exaggeration of openness of interpretation, implying that audiences may obtain almost any kind of gratification regardless of content or of 'preferred readings'. Its functionalist emphasis is politically conservative: if we insist that people will always find some gratifications from any use of media, we may adopt a complacently uncritical stance towards what the mass media currently offer.
Also some degree of selectivity of media and content is clearly exercised by audiences (e.g. choice or avoidance of TV soap operas. However, instrumental (goal-directed) accounts assume a rational choice of appropriate media for predetermined purposes. Such accounts over-emphasize informational purposes and ignore a great deal in people's engagement with media: TV viewing can be an end in itself. There is evidence that media use is often habitual, ritualistic and unselective (Barwise & Ehrenberg 1988). But more positively, TV viewing can sometimes be seen as aesthetic experience in which intrinsic motivation is involved.
References:
1. Barwise, D. & A. Ehrenberg (1988): Television and its Audience. London: Sage
2. Morley, David (1992): Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge
No comments:
Post a Comment