Cultural Revisionism of Uses and Gratification Research

This paper traces the development of U&G research and identifies evolutionary research trends and directions. It aims to bring U&G research into the orbit of ‘integrative communication studies’ by bridging it to the humanistic tradition of the study of culture and making it an indispensable aspect of constructing the research design. Employing Hofstede's theory of cultural dimensions(Hofstede, Pedersen, & Hofstede, 2002), a hypothetical model has been proposed which would allow for the study of cultural effects in the U&G research. The paper concludes with a delineation of the limitations of the proposed perspectives and directions for future studies.