Uses and Gratifications (Blulmer and Katz)

Uses and gratifications is a theory to find out why people want to see specific media outlets in media. For example why do people read magazines and TV Programmes? It is extremely important that magazines take into consideration the audiences wants and needs, as it is them buying the text and making the magazine money. It's the characteristics and statistical information that distinguishes a group of people, which usually includes age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, interests and more. Blulmer and Katz said that the users have a huge role in choosing exactly what they want to see in their media. It's all about finding out exactly what people desire to see in their TV programmes, their magazines and newspapers they read. This theory suggests that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs and that people use media to fulfil specific gratifications. Blulmer and Katz stated 4 main reasons why audiences may want to consume media text and they were Diversion, to escape from their everyday problems and routine, personal relationships, using media for their emotional needs and other interactions, personal identity, which means that the audience may want to read the media to find themselves reflected in the texts, so it relates to them, learning behaviour and values from the text, and last of all surveillance, to find out useful information such as weather, financial news and holiday bargains etc. Readers will buy my magazine for information about their favourite bands/artists and also for an escape from reality, from the real world. As I am basing my music magazine around the Indie gerne, my magazine would be more related to NME. The price of an NME magazine is £2.20, so i would say that my magazine would be aimed at D's, C2's and C1's. This is suggesting that this type of magazine is not really for the upper class, unlike the magazine Vouge that is £4.10. The magazine is this price because in them social grades, more people listen to indie music. Also more 73% of men read NME and only 27% of female read it. The taget audience range is men aged 17-30. I am going to use these NME statistics and interpret them into my magazine.