2004/04/22 by Thomas F. Stafford, Marla Royne Stafford, Lawrence L. Schkade · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Decision Sciences · Psychology · #Digital Marketing and Social Media #Technology Adoption and User Behaviour #Social Media and Politics #Gratification #The Internet #Uses and gratifications theory #Advertising #Promotion (chess) #Business #Service (business) #Marketing #Psychology #Social media #Computer science #World Wide Web #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1111/j.00117315.2004.02524.x
openalex publication_date 2004/04/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
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.