Uses & Gratifications

This theory was proposed by media theorists Katz and Blumler (1974). It considers the reasons certain groups of people use, consume, and get gratification from different media texts. These reasons are split into four groups.

Criticism

This theory has been called simplistic as it suggests that viewers tend to only watch and not think about what they are consuming. It also does not consider the actual intended purpose of the media as it focuses on an audience's selectivity of it. Additionally, media texts can and are often consumed for multiple purposes and so cannot be exclusively classified into one category.