Determining Uses and Gratifications for the Internet

Abstract

Uses and gratifications (U&G) is a media use paradigm from mass communications research that guides the assessment of consumer motivations for media usage and access. It has been used previously in research and decision making related to the promotion of emerging radio and television media. Recent adaptations of U&G research to the Internet are incomplete and have not identified important new Internet-specific gratifications. This paper empirically derives dimensions of consumer Internet use and usage gratifications among customers of a prominent Internet Service Provider (ISP). Results describe three key dimensions related to consumer use of the Internet, including process and content gratifications as previously found in studies of television, as well as an entirely new social gratification that is unique to Internet use. All three dimensions of gratification are relevant to managing the Internet as a commercial medium, and measures developed from the gratification profiles identified here can serve as trait-valid scales in future Internet and e-commerce research.

Second Life adoption in education: A motivational model based on Uses and Gratifications theory

“…This theory has recently drawn the attention of ICT researchers because it has great potential for examining Internet activity (Stafford, Stafford & Schkade, 2004). This approach is used to understand how and why people seek out specific media (Krause, North & Heritage, 2014) and it has helped researchers understand the various needs of users in media adoption.…”

Assessing the influence of motivations and attitude on mobile social networking use

“…These problems or limitations have been gradually overcome and the approach has become one of the most influential theories in the study of communication. This theory has been applied to interactive media such as the Internet (Eighmey 1997;Eighmey and McCord 1998;Parker and Plank 2000;Stafford et al 2004) and the mobile phone (Grant and O'Donohoe 2007;Leung and Wei 2000;Ö zcan and Kocak 2003;Wei et al 2010).…”

“…Focusing on the area of the Internet, Stafford et al (2004) identify three types of gratifications perceived by the audience: (i) content gratifications (provided by content: entertainment, information, etc. ); (ii) gratifications associated to the process (navigation, experience with a new technology, etc.…”

Effects of Personal Traits on Generation Y Consumers' Attitudes Toward the Use of Mobile Devices for Communication and Commerce

“…Two theoretical perspectives, the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the uses and gratifications theory (UGT), have been applied extensively in the study of consumer behavior related to the adoption and use of technology (Chua, Goh, & Lee, 2012;Gao, Sultan, & Rohm, 2010;Stafford, Stafford, & Schkade, 2004). For instance, a recent study by Kim et al (2009) provided empirical evidence supporting the integration of TAM (Davis, 1989) and the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) in the mobile communication context.…”

“…Examining these personal traits is also theoretically grounded on UGT , which has been used to explain the role of personal motive related to consumer choice of a new communication medium (Chua et al, 2012;Gao et al, 2010;Stafford et al, 2004).…”