USES AND GRATIFICATION - BULMLER & KATZ - AUDIENCE THEORY

 

The uses and gratification model represented a change in thinking, as researchers began to describe the effects of the media from the point on view of the audience. The model looks at why people watch the television programs that they do, why they bother to read newspapers and why we find ourselves so compelled to keep up to date with out favourite soap.

Bulmler & Katz argued that an audience needs to have social and psychological origins which generate certain expectations about the mass media, leading to differential patterns of media exposure which result in both the gratification of needs and in other consequences.This does assume an active audience making motivated choices.

The underlying idea behind the model is that people are motivated by a desire to fulfil, or gratify certain needs. So rather than asking how the media uses us, the model asks how we use the media. The model is broken down into four different needs:

Survelliance
Personal Identity
Personal Relationships
Diversion

 SURVELIANCE
 
Surveillance is all about awareness and the need to know what is going on around you in the world to make the individual to feel better. This idea of being aware of the world’s happenings provides gratification of desire for knowledge and security. We can associate to the dominant messages of conforming via the dominant ideologies given in media texts such as music videos. An example of Surveillance is Lilly Allen 'taking the mick' out of Miley Cyrus in her new music video for her representation of herself e.g twerking. This is a current topic of discussion in the media and in the music industry around the world.

                                                           Lilly Allen - Hard out Here


Here Lilly Allen is presenting a current topic of discussion in the form of her music video and her message is that she does not need to act like that in order to get attention from her fan base and a mass audience. From watching Lilly Allens music video the audience understand what she is trying to do and makes them aware of the current topics and feel more knowlegable in knowning Lilly Allen is presenting this topic and them understanding her idea behind it.
PERSONAL IDENTITY

Personal Identity need explains how being a subject of media allows us to reaffirm the identity and positioning within society. The use of personal Identity can be seen in music videos and films, for example pop stars can become big media roles inspiring young children everywhere. This then explains why there is such an outcry when a celebrity is seen to be doing something wrong. People use the media to identify with the happenings on screen and can relate to the narratives. Examples of Personal Identity is Katy Perry's music video - 'The one that got away".

                                                   Katy Perry - The one that got away

The narrative of this music video allows the audience, no matter what age, to be able to relate to a certain point of the music video and look back on past relationships or relate with current relationships. It allows us to identify with Katy Perry as we as an audience may have experienced the same event in ourlives or may relate in the sense that we hope our life events dont turn out like the ones in the media.

 

                                                      Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

This music video is an example of an outcry. The audience know the influence of the song, a relationship break up, an can either relate to the break up or can identify that they do not wish to react like that in the future.

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

2 parts:
Personal Relationships
Using the media within relationships
We can form a relationship with the media, and also use the media to form a relationship with others. Many people use the media as a form of companionship - especailly television. This may seem sad but when an individual thinks of how many times they have watched the Tv by themselves or with other but sitting in silence, this becomes apparent. The television is quite an intimate experience and by watching the smae people on a regular basis we feel very close to them, as if we even know them. For example when presenters or charcters in a soap die those who have watched them a lot often grieve for the characters as if they have lost a friend.
Pink is a popular artist in the music industry and she uses her media material to create a relationship with her fan base. Her first album released expressed events in her younger life and as her career has developed her music has reflected her personal issues, form getting divorced from her husband to them getting back together and having a child. As Pink even chooses to have her husband and child in her music vidoes we feel apart of her life and feel as if we know her personally as we know sections of her private life.

 

Family Portrait 2002 

 

                                                                      So What 2008

                                                                  True Love 2013

 

The more we watch the same personality the more we feel we get to know them. Reality Tv shows such as Big Brother give us such a feeling of intimacy with the participants that they can become part of our lives. Even though the relationships are completly one sided it is easy to see how we can fall in love with TV personalities.

USING THE MEDIA WITHIN RELATIONSHIPS

We can sometimes use the media as a springboard to form and build upon relationships with real people. Having a favourite TV show in common with someone can often be the start of a conversation and can even make talking to strangers a little bit easier. Some studies suggest that families use the televison as a stimulus for conversation, talking about the programme when its on or issues realting to the programme. An example of a springboard for conversation could be certain performance on a popular tv show such as X factor. X factor is a very popular tv show and features existing artists performing live, some of their performances however, can cause controversy in the media because of the content of the performance. Lady Gaga is a very popular artist and is known for her outrageous dress sense and performances so when she appeared on the Xfactor to do a live performance the audience were not expecting an average, normal performance.

                 Lady Gaga's X factor performance 2013 - Venus.

This performance caused a lot of people to be outraged by the performance and was a
popular talking point the following days after the performance. This is an exmaple of the media being used within relationships to build upon real life relationships and the media used as a springboard for a common talking point with strangers.

DIVERSION

Diversion is commonly known as escapism - the need to watch the media to forget about our own life and problems for a while and watch something else. Watching music videos is a way to do this, we want to distract ourselves from the problems we are facing. We want to see that people experience the same problems as we do and want to forget our own problems and focus on someone elses. Examples of music videos that do this are 'Happy' by Leona Lewis and 'Best thing I never had' by Beyonce.

                                                                 Happy - Leona Lewis

 

 

Best thing I never Had - Beyonce

 

Both of these music videos have address a real life situation such as a relationship break up, an issue that the audience can relate too. If the audience watching the music video was experiencing a break up at the time of watching, their focuses diverges from their own problems to those of the artist in the music video. Although the problems may be similar it makes the audience realise that everyone my experience the same problem in their life time and make them focus upon the artists lyric subject rather than their own real life problems.

 

 

 

CRITICISMS OF THE THEORY: IAN ANG

The uses and gratification theory is criticised by Ian Ang in three ascpects.
He said the theory is highly individualistic, taking into account only the individual psychological gratification derived from individual media use, ignoring the social use of the context of media. This overlooks the fact that some media use may have nothing to do with the pursuit of gratification that the media may have been forced upon us, for example. Ang said there is relatively little attention paid to media content, in relation to researchers attending to why people use the media but less to what meanings they actually get out of their media us. In addition, the appraoch starts from the view that the media are always functional to people and may thus implicity offer a justification for the way the media are currently organized.