Uses and Gratifications

Blumer and Katz (1974) suggested that people used media to satisfy their everyday needs of:
-Escape and diversion
-Surveillance and information
-Personal relationships
-Personal identity


Escape and Diversion
-Magazines and websites offer an escape from every day life
-It creates a gateway for involvement in artists and their stories
-They can focus more on the content of the magazine rather than the drama in their own lives]

Surveillance and Information
-Magazines provide enough information to know more or less everything going on in artists lives and what's going on in their lives.
-Readers are able to keep up to date with what is going on and what happens within the music industry.

Personal Relationships
-Target audience are able to talk to each other about what's going on in the magazine
-They can share opinions on what's going on
-Creates opportunity for social interaction

Mode of Address
-Language and images used are based on the understanding that the reader shares colloquial knowledge about what they re talking about
-Allows reader to relate to content of the magazine
-Language depends on the style of magazine

Interactivity
-The way magazines allow interaction between fans and the magazine and then the fans and the artists
-Websites and social networking sites add more opportunity for interactivity
-Websites offer technology that magazines cant offer such as videos, music and downloads
-Message boards and comment pages widen interactivity