Whilst the Uses and Gratifications method of audience research marked a considerable advance over previous, more mechanistic models of audience research, it was still fundamentally flawed by its adherence to similar theoretical traditions. What are these traditions, and why did they ultimately limit the success of the approach?

First of all it is important to describe the mechanistic paradigm which was prevalent before the emergence of the Uses and Gratifications model.  This approach was characterised by the hypodermic needle model of media effects.  This approach likened any media to a hypodermic needle delivering its message direct to a passive simple audience, who swallowed the meaning whole and as intended.  There are connotations of drug use built into this depiction  that the audience is made up of doped up couch potatoes passively absorbing the media message.  The over-riding feel of this paradigm is that media consumption of any kind has a negative effect on the audience.  media researchers thought that the media could inject values, attitudes and ways of thinking directly into the heads of the defenceless public (Gripsrud, 1999, 42)…(short extract)