9.3.2

Media Theories 2

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Uses and Gratifications Theory

Blumler and McQuail suggest that people use the media in order to satisfy particular social needs that they have.

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Active audiences

  • Blumler and McQuail see media audiences as active.
  • Their uses and gratifications model suggests that people use the media in order to satisfy particular social needs that they have.
  • Blumler and McQuail identify four basic needs which people use the media to satisfy.   
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Diversion

  • Diversion:
    • People may immerse themselves in particular types of media to make up for the lack of satisfaction at work or in their daily lives.
    • E.g. women may compensate for the lack of romance in their marriages by reading romantic novels.
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Personal relationships

  • Personal relationships:
    • Media products such as soap operas may compensate for the decline of community in our lives.
    • E.g. socially isolated elderly people may see soap opera characters as companions they can identify with and worry about in the absence of interaction with family members.   
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Personal identity

  • Personal identity:
    • People may use the media to ‘make over’ or to modify their identity.
    • Social networking websites, such as Facebook, allow people to use the media to present their particular identities to the wider world in a way that they can control.   
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Surveillance

  • Surveillance:
    • People use the media to obtain information and news in order to help them make up their minds on particular issues.   

The Cultural Effects Model​ 

The Marxist cultural effects model sees the media as a very powerful ideological influence that is mainly concerned with transmitting capitalist values and norms.

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Transmission of norms and values

  • The Marxist cultural effects model sees the media as a very powerful ideological influence that is mainly concerned with transmitting capitalist values and norms.
  • Marxists argue that media content contains strong ideological messages that reflect the values of those who own, control and produce the media.
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Values

  • They argue that the long term effect of such media content is that the values of the rich and powerful come to be unconsciously shared by most people in society.
  • For example, people come to believe in values such as ‘happiness is about possessions and money’, ‘being a celebrity is really important’, etc.
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Dumbing down

  • Marxists believe that television content, in particular, has been deliberately dumbed down and this has resulted in a decline in serious programmes such as news, documentaries and drama that might make audiences think critically about the state of the world.
  • Consequently, there is little serious debate about the organisation of capitalism and the social inequalities and problems that it generates.

Jump to other topics

1Theory & Methods

2Education with Methods in Context

3Option 1: Culture & Identity

4Option 1: Families & Households

5Option 1: Health

6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare

7Option 2: Beliefs in Society

8Option 2: Global Development

9Option 2: The Media

10Crime & Deviance

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