Elihu KatzElihu Katz and Jay Blumler, seeks to explain the relationship between an audience and how this audience uses the media.

Who is Katz and Blumler?

Katz and Jay G. Blumler played a major role in the research of media uses and gratifications as editors of The Uses of Mass Communication: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research (1974).

What are the 4 uses and gratifications theory?

The four categories were: (1) Diversion: escape from routine or problems; emotional release; (2) Personal relationships: companionship; social utility; (3) Personal identity: self reference; reality exploration; value reinforces; and (4) Surveillance (forms of information seeking).

What two theorists talk about uses and gratifications?

Uses and Gratifications theory as developed by Bulmer and Katz suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. Bulmer and Katz believed that the user seeks out the media source that best fulfils their needs.

What theory did Blumler and Katz put forward?

Theory in detail



Blumler and Katz argued that different people could use the same communication message for different purposes. The same media content may gratify different needs for different individuals. This theory suggests that media has no power over audiences.

Why is Katz’s famous?

Katz’s is nothing less than the most famous remaining Jewish-style deli in the nation, especially since the closing of iconic New York eatery Carnegie Deli, and has been dispensing its famous pastrami and corned beef on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for more than 130 years (since 1888).

What is the theory developed by Katz and Lazarsfeld?

The theory of the two-step flow of mass communication was further developed by Lazarsfeld together with Elihu Katz in the book Personal Influence (1955). The book explains that people’s reactions to media messages are mediated by interpersonal communication with members of their social environment.

What is Stuart Hall’s theory?

Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory



Stuart Hall suggested that media texts contain a variety of messages that are encoded (made/inserted) by producers and then decoded (understood) by audiences. Therefore what we see is simply a ‘re-presentation’ of what producers want us to see.

What is UGT based on?

UGT discusses how users deliberately choose media that will satisfy given needs and allow one to enhance knowledge, relaxation, social interactions/companionship, diversion, or escape. It assumes that audience members are not passive consumers of media.

What are the 5 needs categories of uses and gratification theory?

Some recent research on SNSs use has shown their users gratify all five needs from the original classification – cognitive needs, af- fective needs, the need for personal identity, integration and social interaction and escapism (Katz, Gurevitch, Haas, 1973, in: Tan, 1985: 235-236).

What is communication by Katz and Kahn?

For Katz and Kahn (1999, p. 245), communication is much more than simply the flow of information, being an “exchange and transmission of meaning – the very essence of a social system or organization“. Hence, any work implementation depends on communication between people at each organizational level.

Who identified uses and gratification theory in communication?

Elihu Katz

Elihu Katz first introduced the Uses and Gratification Approach, when he came up with the notion that people use the media to their benefit. The perspective emerged in the early 1970’s as Katz and his two colleagues, Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch continued to expand the idea.

Who created audience theory?

Stuart Hall

The cultural theorist, Stuart Hall, explored how people make sense of media texts and claimed audiences were active not passive. An active audience engages, interprets and responds to a media text in different ways and is capable of challenging the ideas encoded in it.