Uses and Gratification of Media

 Uses and gratification of media

Needless to say, the video itself is very much self-explanatory. It's about the modern day culture of Malaysia, well at least a part of it.

So you might have noticed the title of the post "Uses and Gratification of Media", well it basically means How we use the media itself. In our studies, there are 6 categories of the usage of media, namely:

1. Expression
2. Withdrawal
3. Diversion
4. Social Utility
5. Cognition 
6. Affiliation 

These categories are differently characterized, that's why they're in different categories. Now let's talk briefly on each one of these categories.

Expression:

We watch or maybe even create videos ourselves, sometimes it's for the use of showing one's expression. We would probably want to tell our friends or peers something that we feel likely about. Our thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc.

Withdrawal:

Don't you get that urge to just listen to your music with the earphones fully trenched deep into your auditory canal and just ignore what's happening around you? That's what we call withdrawal. It's human nature to create a buffer-zone, a barrier against the outside world, to block incoming messages and only focus on a specific media instead.

Diversion:

So yeah, you get bored, with no idea on how to carry out the day, what do you do? We tend to just go onto YouTube and search for any sorts of videos that suits our mood. Or to put Diversion in simpler terms, it means simply to pass time.

Social Utility:
Now media is used by some to intentionally create a purpose. For example, To strengthen friendships or even relationship? maybe we'll watch something with our friends at the theater?
It provides a social ground for conversations.

Cognition:
Easier to describe as to "Look Out". We use media maybe to find out what's happening around the world or even domestically. Maybe one were to be interested in Malaysia let's say, they'll watch the tourism board's promotional videos just to get to know Malaysia better.

Affiliation:
This is more like a group, a sense of belonging to a group of friends who have at least something in common. Maybe a national song may be played on and on on the radio, Malaysians we'll feel the pride of being well, a Malaysian of course.

So we had a chance at deciphering what this video above tells us about how we actually use this example of media for our daily use. Here are the accounts of the members' actual thoughts.

Suslin's thoughts on Expression:

"This video show about the expression of all the Malaysian have the same attitude, Only in Malaysia the hand is more powerful sometimes and call everyone boss, uncle and aunty. Some of the Malaysian has no manners they didn’t queue up in a line they almost try to get in front without their manners. Our food have many type as same as our country , that show 1 Malaysia. We live in different religion, different race but we live in peace. When everyone heard FOC everyone will all crowded at the place, for getting the free gift and when purchase something we will try to get a free gift from the sales man also. Malaysian has our own style that only in Malaysia." - Suslin 

CoShin's thoughts on Withdrawal:

"When I'm watching 'Only in Malaysia' this video, I managed to drag myself away from those stresses. The stressed caused by teachers, friends and family. I shut myself off from the ''busy life'' to watch this video. I forgotten about assignments and homeworks while I'm watching this video clip. It's talking about Malaysians' manners and attitudes. Something that would only happened in Malaysia"

Joanne's thought on Diversion:

  

"my situation is count as diversion because i watch it when i feel bored.I think it has been 2 day ago, i was online but there is nothing to do so i just ask my frieng gling to send me the llink about the video. i just use it to pass my time. The video is about the thing that 'ONLY' happen in Malaysia. Although i just use it to pass my time, bt it make me knew something.(the bad attitudes that happen in Malaysia)"

Guat Ling's thought on Social Utility

"I watched this video because many of my friends are crazily discussing and sharing it with me because of the presence of Greyson Chance in the video.The title of the video- ONLY in Malaysia is not really attracting since the name is too common but most of the comments after they watched the video are positive and the popularity of the video is high, because of the Greyson Chance? This video is talking about the things that ONLY happened in Malaysia. After I watched , I shared it with my FB friends."

Now Nan Young is our special friend from South Korea who is currently studying with us in FICM, so the category of Social Cognition suites her best we thought.

Nan Young's thought on Social Cognition :

"Getting to know Malaysia, the culture is very different. Watching this Video made me feel better at knowing Malaysia, the video "Only in Malaysia" actually did showed me how typical Malaysians are like and the diversity of cultures out here."

Kevin's thoughts on Affiliation:

"To call myself a Malaysian, I'll have to see what others perceives as event or culture that's so unique that's It's Only in Malaysia. A sense of pride and humor aroused within me when I watch this Video. To know that, I am also what a typical Malaysian is like, cultural wise. To think that, no matter the race that defines us, we share common traits that, well, only in Malaysia do we have those. So I'll be proud to say, I'm Malaysian because I act like the people in the video themselves."

Now what do you think about media itself?

Thank you for your time.

This week's writers:
Kevin and Guat Ling.

Welcome to BNC's blog, It's going to be interesting.

It's a new Blog so this definitely calls for some introduction.

So you might be wondering what "BNC" stands for, well it is actually just the initials of our group's name which is called "Beauties and the Captain". We're basically just a group of Taylor School of Communication students currently having this blog as our assignment. 

So how did we came up with the super awesome name : Beauties and the Captain?
It's because in our group, there are 6 of us and only ONE male in the group. He is known as Captain as his nickname because we've known him through introduction when he was wearing a captain America Shirt, Cool right? as for us Beauties, well you know, we're ladies what :)

This blog namely BNC serves as a channel for us to share with people like you, everyone, anyone about what we've learned ( still learning ) about the foundations of Mass Communications. We'll keep this blog actively updated weekly and just share out loads and loads of juicy information. We'll share ground breaking information, THINGS that you might not even thought about, and of course to complete our assignment.

Our hope is simple, is that we could learn from each other and hopefully help one another. Please give us positive feedback on our progress, we would very much love to hear from you too :) Thanks people :)

Love,
BNC.