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Approximately 500 people participated in a study that examined the relationship between generalized uses-and-gratifications statements and specific magazine reading behaviors. The subjects responded to a telephone survey that elicited information concerning demographics, media usage, and reactions to 14 uses-and-gratifications statements that had received widespread use in the print media studies prior to 1981. The statements were organized into three broad categories concerned with surveillance of, diversion from, and interaction with the surrounding environment. Results showed that the statements distinguished between people who had read a magazine during the previous month and those who had not, with the former using magazines to help them interact with the larger social environment and the latter producing unspecific explanations of their behavior. The statements also proved useful in distinguishing among subscribers, readers, and nonreaders of general consumer magazines and newsmagazines. In terms of overall magazine readership, interaction with the larger environment was the strongest predictor, even though it emerged as secondary to surveillance for newsmagazine readers and to diversion for general consumer magazine readers. (FL)

Using a sample from a homogeneous population, a study was conducted to examine the distinction between intrapersonal and interpersonal issue agendas, and the use of open-ended questions, paried comparisons, and semantic differentials to measure respondent agendas. The study found measurable differences between intrapersonal and interpersonal issue agendas on both the individual and aggregate levels. The three measurement techniques were found to produce consistent interpersonal agendas, but a lack of consistency across the three measures for intrapersonal agendas indicated that choice of technique could affect the measurement of issue agendas. (Author)

A study collected data from 763 door-to-door interviews to test hypotheses about the uses and gratifications associated with newspaper readerships. In the interviews, respondents were identified demographically, asked about their newspaper reading behaviors, and asked to reply to a series of uses and gratifications statements on why they read newspapers: (1) to keep up on the latest events (information/intrapersonal), (2) to be entertained (entertainment/intrapersonal), (3) to give me something to talk about with other people (information/interpersonal), and (4) to show or read items to other people so that they can enjoy them (entertainment/interpersonal). Overall, results showed that everyday readership was related to an information orientation, particularly information for self-use, and this orientation was weakest in the 18-29 age group. Further, regardless of age, the readership pattern of more than one newspaper per day was strongly related toward an entertainment orientation, particularly entertainment for self, while reading only a suburban newspaper was oriented away from self-entertainment. The results indicated that the informational orientation of newspapers would help maintain readership, but that declining orientation toward using newspapers for entertainment could be a source of erosion for newspaper readership. (RL)

Since the concepts of surveillance (international information and keeping up with the job that the government is doing), diversion (being entertained and killing time), and interaction (people learning more about themselves) have been developed for newspaper and television but not necessarily for magazines, a study applied 14 uses-and-gratifications statements concerning these concepts in an initial telephone sample of 543 adults in a western urban area and a replicated telephone sample of 557 adults from the same area. Overall, the findings revealed that magazine readership in general was related to the diversion idea of improving the reader's lifestyle and the interaction concept of getting information to pass on to other people. Reading consumer magazines was specifically related to improving lifestyles, while reading newsmagazines put more emphasis on the interaction of understanding what is going on. Finally, magazine nonreaders were more likely to be oriented toward local information, an area rarely, if ever, covered by the magazine medium. (HOD)

Prompted by the lack of use and gratification studies that have concerned themselves with an examination of newspaper-related behaviors such as subscribing versus not subscribing, buying single copies versus not reading at all, and weekday versus Sunday newspaper readership, a study conducted a telephone survey of 543 persons to determine whether the concepts of surveillance, diversion, and interaction could prove useful in explaining such newspaper readership behaviors. Questions were asked concerning demographics, media usage, and reactions to a selection of use and gratification statements. In addition, three idiosyncratic statements were added to permit the emergence of other statement groupings. The data analysis revealed that subscribers who read both weekday and Sunday newspapers tended to have a strong generalized orientation toward surveillance of the environment, while nonreaders tended to view the newspaper as a diversion to pass time. Single copy readers used weekday newspapers as an interaction tool for finding materials to talk about, while Sunday newspaper single copy readers were more oriented toward the surveillance notion of understanding what is going on. The differences in the orientations of single copy readers helped to account for differences between weekday and Sunday circulation for local newspapers. (HOD)

Fourteen statements relating to the surveillance, diversion, and social interaction uses of media were drawn from a review of uses and gratification research and applied to the viewing of local and national early evening news and nighttime local news television programs. A telephone survey of 543 adults elicited information concerning demographics and media usage, as well as reactions to the uses and gratifications statements. Overall, the results showed that the three types of newscasts served different purposes and that some of these differences were detectable through the uses and gratifications research perspective. Specifically, the findings showed that watching both local and national early evening news programs was related to surveillance of the environment while watching television in general was related to diversion from that environment. Watching local early evening news was also found to be related to diversion and acquiring materials for personal discussions, while watching early evening national news was more related to interaction with the larger social environment. Late night news was used primarily by viewers as a means of gathering information for social interaction or as a substitute for human companionship. (FL)

A followup study investigated radio listenership as ritualistic behavior, based on an initial study using the same set of questions. The hypothesis tested was that gratifications statements related to radio usage would produce similar and stable patterns, reflecting highly ritualistic orientations toward the medium. Subjects, 557 adults in a large urban area of the Western United States, were randomly surveyed by telephone and asked about demographics, media usage, and reactions to a selection of 14 uses and gratifications statements about radio. Replies were coded on a five-point scale, and results were compared with those of the initial study. Data analysis revealed many consistencies between the two sets of findings. Perceived helpfulness of radio news was most consistent, followed by number of hours of listening in the morning and afternoon. The greatest number of discrepancies involved the amount of attention paid to radio. Based on the second set of findings, radio audiences stressed entertainment in the morning, whereas local news was accented during the afternoon. Positive orientations toward radio news were based on its immediacy. In terms of radio as ritual, it could be acknowledged that listening regularity is symptomatic of ritual but not necessarily ritualistic. (References and tables of data are included.) (NKA)

A study tested the applicability of gratifications research to magazines. Telephone surveys with 543 adults in a large western urban area ascertained their media usages and their agreement with 14 gratifications statements drawn from morphostatic research into the surveillance-diversion-personal identity triad in relation to newspaper and radio. Analyses determined if the expected three dimensions were present for magazines, and if expectancies regarding magazines could be related to magazine readership. Diversion was found to be a common response across media, while surveillance and interaction depended upon the medium under consideration. To evaluate these insights and to test magazines' potential for morphogenetic approaches, magazine readership behaviors were examined. Results indicated that magazines, even newsmagazines, were measurably different from newspapers in terms of media gratifications. The pattern for general circulation magazines was also different from that of newspapers and newsmagazines. Findings indicated that all three gratifications research perspectives had been partly correct. Morphostatic research, cross-media comparisons, and morphogenetic approaches were all supported. (HTH)