Some mass communications scholars have contended that uses and gratifications is not a rigorous social science theory. In this article, I argue just the opposite, and any attempt to speculate on the future direction of mass communication theory must seriously include the uses and gratifications approach. In this article, I assert that the emergence of computer-mediated communication has revived the significance of uses and gratifications. In fact, uses and gratifications has always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass communications medium: newspapers, radio and television, and now the Internet. Although scientists are likely to continue using traditional tools and typologies to answer questions about media use, we must also be prepared to expand our current theoretical models of uses and gratifications. Contemporary and future models must include concepts such as interactivity, demassification, hypertextuality, and asynchroneity. Researchers must also be willing to explore interpersonal and qualitative aspects of mediated communication in a more holistic methodology.

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Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century

Can socio-demographics still play a role in profiling green consumers? A review of the evidence and an empirical investigation

We review the personal and social influences on pro-environmental concern and behaviour, with an emphasis on recent research. The number of these influences suggests that understanding pro-environmental concern and behaviour is far more complex than previously thought. The influences are grouped into 18 personal and social factors. The personal factors include childhood experience, knowledge and education, personality and self-construal, sense of control, values, political and world views, goals, felt responsibility, cognitive biases, place attachment, age, gender and chosen activities. The social factors include religion, urban-rural differences, norms, social class, proximity to problematic environmental sites and cultural and ethnic variations We also recognize that pro-environmental behaviour often is undertaken based on none of the above influences, but because individuals have non-environmental goals such as to save money or to improve their health. Finally, environmental outcomes that are a result of these influences undoubtedly are determined by combinations of the 18 categories. Therefore, a primary goal of researchers now should be to learn more about how these many influences moderate and mediate one another to determine pro-environmental behaviour.

https://www.psihologietm.ro/download/Gifford.pdf

Personal and social factors that influence pro-environmental concern and behaviour: a review

This secondary analysis of television viewing motivations and patterns located two television user types: (1) users of the television medium for time consumption and entertainment; and (2) users of television content for nonescapist, information seeking.

Television uses and gratifications: The interactions of viewing patterns and motivations

This article discusses the photo-elicitation interview (PEI), a qualitative methodology, by addressing its fundamentals, providing examples of how to use it, and arguing its benefits and potential ...

Framing the Social World With Photo-Elicitation Interviews:

Handbook of Visual Analysis. Theo van Leeuwen and Carey Jewitt, eds. London, England: Sage Publications, 2001. 210 pp. $27.95 pbk. Martin Lister and Liz Wells make a compelling case for the importance of visual research: "With the late twentieth century's explosion of imaging and visualizing techniques (digitization, satellite imaging, new forms of medical imaging, virtual reality, etc.) . . . everyday life has become 'visual culture.' This can be seen as an acceleration of a longer history involving photography, film, television and video. [Some also argue] that the study of visual culture can not be confined to the study of images, but should also take account of the centrality of vision in everyday experience and the production of meaning." It is frustrating and challenging that such an important dimension of human communication is so ubiquitous yet so poorly understood. Part of the reason for our skimpy knowledge of visual communication is a proliferation of theorizing about visual communication at the same time that a mismatched welter of methods are being employed-empirical and critical, objective and subjective, focused and hit-miss, controlled and uncontrolled-to assess content, communicator motivations, viewer perceptions and effects, and societal embeddedness. This handbook seeks to provide an overview of available approaches and an explication of how they may be used to advance knowledge and understanding in the selected area. This book, written by leading internationally recognized scholars and practitioners of their perspectives, makes a good stab at those ambitious goals. In addition to Lister and Wells' chapter on cultural studies, the book also features overviews by Philip Bell on content analysis, Malcolm Collier on visual anthropology, van Leeuwen on semiotics and iconography, Gertraud Diem-Wille on therapeutic psychoanalytic use of drawings, Carey Jewitt and Rumiko Oyama on social semiotics, Charles Goodwin on ethnomethodology, and Rick Iedema's social semiotic analysis of a documentary film. The content analysis chapter is an excellent overview of a dominant method employed in visual analysis. A comparison of the first twenty with the last twenty covers of Cleo magazine walks the reader through the basic steps. Visual anthropology, which combines art and science in its analysis approach, is explicated in a very readable chapter, drawing on longitudinal photographic studies dating back to the 1930s of Navajo, Pueblo, and Hispanic populations in the American Southwest, as well as a San Franciscan Chinatown photo map. Lister and Wells' chapter on cultural studies provides a lot of dense verbiage as underbrush to be hacked through, but the towering treetops above are worth the trail through the terminology. I disagreed with their characterization of several photographs, but cultural differences may be at work here, since the British authors interpret photographs made by several nationalities. The chapter on semiotics and iconography contains clear, straightforward prose that nicely illustrates the complicated writings of others, particularly Roland Barthes (visual semiotics) and Erwin Panofsky (iconography). …

Handbook of Visual Analysis

:What effect does education, age, and consumption of environmental information from newspapers and television have on people's environmental knowledge, concerns, and behavior? Partial answers to this question are based on a 1984 telephone survey of 336 residents of Ithaca, New York. Respondents' education and newspaper use led to greater effects. Television use, both for specific environmental information and in general, appeared to have some negative consequences. Age did not relate to the dependent variable.

Impact of Education, Age, Newspapers, and Television on Environmental Knowledge, Concerns, and Behaviors

Which mass media sources of environmental information are used most frequently by a public? What is a public's perception of the quality of environmental content provided by journalists and newscasters? Partial answers to these questions are based on telephone surveys among 336 Ithaca, New York, residents in April 1984. Newspapers and television emerged as most frequently used media, but other media were preferred for believable information. Educated segments of the sample used television less for environmental news than did less educated segments and tended to reject television as a believable source, preferring print media other than newspapers as believable sources of scientific information on the environment. The sample generally held a negative evaluation of media personnel performance on four criteria—lack of balance, biased political orientation, sensationalism, and tendency to select so as to maximize audience. A slim majority thought environmental media messengers told the truth.

A Public's Environmental Information Sources and Evaluations of Mass Media

Public opinion toward Muslim Americans: Civil liberties and the role of religiosity, ideology, and media use

In a comparison of two probability surveys, one conducted immediately after the Persian Gulf War and the other a year and half earlier, this study showed significantly higher levels of news exposure across all media channels during the war Both exposure to newspaper and to cable and PBS news programming were positively related to levels of knowledge about the war Exposure to CNN leveled off the potential differences in knowledge acquisition across educational levels Exposure to network TV news might be related to gaining “image-oriented” information, while exposure to newspaper and to cable and PBS news programming were related to learning more abstract and complex information about the war

Ronald E. Ostman

Papers

Handbook of Visual Analysis

Impact of Education, Age, Newspapers, and Television on Environmental Knowledge, Concerns, and Behaviors

A Public's Environmental Information Sources and Evaluations of Mass Media

Public opinion toward Muslim Americans: Civil liberties and the role of religiosity, ideology, and media use

News Media Exposure and Its Learning Effects during the Persian Gulf War