Uses of Gratification Theory

What is the idea behind this? The uses of gratification theory was discovered by Elihu Katz 1959, he came with the theory that people use the media to their liking, the approach is essentially saying that the views (audience) are in control of the media and can achieve specific results Elithu disagreed with this. Emotional release: While watching the film we have produced, our target audience which is 15+ and by watching the film many different emotions will be ignored their focus will be on whats happening within those two minutes however they can still get emotions while watching our film such as the beginning the plot is quite tensed so the build of the beginning will relate to what happens in the end. Escaping, or being diverted from problems While watching our film the audience will be able to forget all the problems they had to begin with before, and the audience will be able to concentrate on the film and be able to sit back and enjoy it without having to worry about the problems they had before, they will forget about their problems (also known as diverting) Relaxing When watching a film, the audience feels relaxed forgetting all their worries, , so the audience are not stressing over the things they had on their mind before. They mainly focus on the film with whats going on. Visual enjoyment While our audience are watching our film they are getting visual enjoyment out of it and movies do provide entertainment and enjoyment whether its a different genre to what we are doing, we have added in different essentials making sure that our film is being enjoyed by our audience Gaining a sense of belonging When you go to the cinema you go with your friends majority of the time, as our film is a horror youre more likely to go watch it with your friends as a sense of enjoyment and you also interact with your friends and more likely to enjoy it rather than watching a romantic comedy. As our film is a horror it will be more tension building and more suitable watching it with your friends.

Social interaction According to this theory, viewing all types of films or different productions by the media, causes a base of conversation and social interaction between friends or family. When a film finishes you normally talk about it saying how good it was or how bad it was talking to someone and giving them your opinions of the film is called social interaction. After watching our film people will most likely talk about and say what they liked and disliked about it and whether they enjoyed it or not.

By Hiba Butt.