Uses and Gratifications: Evidence for Various Media

This entry reviews the scope and character of the current research based on the uses and gratifications approach, and discusses challenges faced by contemporary uses and gratifications studies. From a theoretical perspective, the uses and gratifications approach emerged as a response to earlier approaches that perceived the mass media as a generator of strong and uniform effects across individuals and groups. The new approach became prevalent as television was transforming people's media ecologies, prompting a need for approaches that more adequately fit the emerging media landscape. Given the significant changes in the current media ecology, we face a similar situation today, and, as with the diffusion of television, the penetration of new media again seems to be hospitable for the uses and gratifications approach.