Lesson 17

Lesson 17: 17-03-09



In today's lesson, we focussed on the Uses and Gratifications approach within our media consumption. It made us think carefully about how we can involve these ideas within our magazine production to fulfil our target audience needs. The uses and gratifications is the notion that we choose what we consume as an audience, and ties in four main subjects.

1. Escapism- Where readers have a chance to get away from reality, and become engrosed in what they are involved in.
2. Personal Relationships- Where the audience feel they have a significant relationship with the celebrity they are reading or looking at.
3. Personal Identity- Where the trends and ways of living become shown through the particular media product, which consequently makes people make a statement about themselves and discover their own identities.
4. Surveillance- Where the readers and audiences learn about the world around them, whether it be about music itself or a particular news topic.

I have an understanding that all of these points that come under the uses and gratifications, have dangers and can often make people believe lies about certain issues and take things too far when consuming their own media. We also discovered that there are certain ways in which our media product the music magazine, can include these aspects which will fulfill their needs to full effect.