Uses and Gratification Theory

To assist you with the assigned readings, I have developed an outline of questions for you to answer. Think about this as a key for what information to pay attention to in the reading. Research shows that students learn and retain information better when they can write it down in their own words.

Try to answer the questions within these guides in your own words rather than copying and pasting the content from readings/lectures. The idea is to see if you can succinctly answer the question in your own words based on the knowledge you gained from your readings/lectures. Try to answer each question within one to three sentences.

1. How was uses and gratification theory different than other media theories at the time?
2. What were the three objectives Blumer & Katz (1974) had for developing uses and gratification theory?
3. What are the two key concepts of uses and gratification theory?
4. What is the five proposition of uses and gratification theory?
5. Does the uses and gratification approach consider audiences to be active or passive consumers? Why?
6. Your textbook discusses many reasons why audience members may experience gratification when watching media. Describe three reasons in your own words.
7. Describe one theoretical and one methodological criticism uses and gratification theory has faced.
8. How does uses and gratification theory explain the idea of selective perception and why two people may walk away with entirely different interpretations of the same media message? (asynchronous lecture)
9. What are parasocial relationships? How do they influence the ways in which media affect us? (asynchronous lecture)
10. What is the idea behind mood management theory? What did the results of Knobloch & Zillmann, 2003 study reveal about why people select the songs they do? (asynchronous lecture)