The Social Uses of Television

Building from the social constructivist view, this paper provides evidence that audience members create specific and sometimes elaborate practical actions involving television in order to gratify particular needs in the context of family viewing. The ethnography of mass communication is recommended as a methodological framework suitable for discovering and documenting these behaviors. Based on findings from systematic participant observation research, and from the pertinent uses and gratifications literature, a typology of the social uses of television, with emphasis on their communicative value, is presented. Mass media are found to be valuable social resources, not unlike language or the occasions for talk, which are particularly useful to the imaginative social member for the construction and maintenance of desired relations at home.