Audience Use and Gratification Theory

What is it?
Audience theory strives to ask three questions; why do audiences choose certain media, how do they consume this media, and what happens when they consume it? Audience use and gratification theory asks why and what people do when they choose to consume a media rather than the media's affect on the actual audience. It believes that rather than the media being forced onto an audience, the audience willingly chooses the media in order to gratify their needs. Audience use and gratification theory works on the idea that the relationship between the audience and the media has evolved to the point where the audience no longer simply consumes the media but becomes a part of it. The audience choose a certain type of media to fulfill their gratification therefore it is up to marketing to win the audience's gratification over competing medias.

Audience and Media Relationship
An audience can interact with a media in numerous different ways. An example would be writing a review on a movie rather than just watching it, or even just talking about the movie on social media counts as interacting with the film rather than consuming it. People start conversations about TV shows or films and media has become a part of our everyday lives. But because of this, it's believed that audience use and gratification theory is false because we have become so addicted to the media it is no longer an option to willingly choose not to consume it. The media is everywhere whether we want to see it or not. Therefore it's the media that has influence over the people and not the other way around. This has come around with the growth of the media. We can now have more control over the media we consume and how we can interact with it.

Criticism
This theory excludes marketing strategies that target a specific audience group. For example, marketing campaigns assume that women are the general audience for romance films therefore it doesn't market towards a male audience therefore goes against the audience use and gratification theory. But this theory would apply to my own psychological thriller film because it's targeted towards a niche audience that typically explores various films whether they are independent or low budget. Therefore my targeted audience is very open age and gender-wise as it's the type of audience that doesn't follow general trends or fads. 

The theory also suggests we have some form of control over the media which many believe is not true. The media is everywhere from advertisements to television and can have influence over our lives without us even realising it. This happens at a very young age, maybe even before we our conscious of what influences us. An example of this would be children's television shows such as Bob the Builder which is a show clearly targeted towards young boys and first plants the idea that a male role is typically filled with manual labour whereas girls are introduced to shows such as Barbie which introduces feminine elements such as dresses, hair and makeup. This follows up into adulthood where the typical daytime shows revolve around cooking or house refurbishing - shows that have a general audience of housewives. The general public also does not have much control over the information shared across the media. Newspapers decide what information they want to prioritise such as having a celebrity on the front page rather than an update on the Syria crisis.