This article goes into depth opposing the idea that uses and gratification is not a rigorous social science theory. The writer, Thomas E. Ruggiero, believes that any prediction based around the future of mass communication must heavily include uses and gratification.
Uses and gratifications theory is an approach to understanding what people look for in the media and what satisfies them on their desired platforms.
Mass communication is the process of creating and exchanging information through mass media platforms reaching an insane amount of the population at an instant.
After reading the article, I am on Ruggiero’s side. Thinking that uses and gratifications is not a rigorous social science theory is crazy to me. Our world is driven by media whether that is television, music, movies, sports, art, or whatever else you are into. And all that media is developed and created with the goal to satisfy the viewer and keep them invested in the product. That mindset is exactly what uses and gratifications covers.
Our world seems so media and screen based at the moment, but I think we still have not scratched the surface of the potential of technology or the demand for media attention. Technology is evolving daily. It may be the biggest thing in our world and to think that uses and gratifications is not one of the most important parts of that is shocking to me.
Uses and gratifications was criticized at first. It was said to be “overly reliant on self-reports, unsophisticated about the social origin of the needs that audiences bring to the media, was too uncritical of the possible dysfunction both for self and society of certain kinds of audience satisfaction and was too captivated by inventive diversity of audiences used to pay attention to the constraints of the text.” Ruggiero wrote.
That form of criticism is heavily outdated. Analytics are extremely informative now and can tell you exactly what works and what does not. They can tell you how long someone watch your video for and why they ended up there. Things are being tracked at a whole new level and the uses and gratification theory is involved in that process.
Media and the analytics that come with it are everything in today’s society for a company to flourish and with that comes the need for uses and gratifications. I think the writer of this article is correct in opposing the idea that uses and gratifications is not a super important component to daily operations of companies and their media platforms.
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