Use Me. Gratify Me. (A theory not nearly as sexual as it sounds.)

 Playing Dungeons and Dragons isn’t a medium. While not media itself, there is a long list of media about roleplay gaming: actual play podcasts, documentary and dramatic films, and even a short-lived Dungeons and Dragons Saturday morning cartoon. It ran for three seasons from 1983-1985. In this installment of Dungeon Theory, we are concerned not with the effects of media on people, but rather, what people do with the media they choose. To my chagrin at times, my wife doesn’t listen to or watch Critical Role, one of the forms of D&D media I probably spend the most amount of time consuming each week. But, even if she did, this week’s theory would draw our attention to the likelihood that we would both be consuming that media for different reasons. Because of that, we’d likely get something different out of that consumption. We’d be using the program for different purposes and, therefore, gaining different pleasures from it.  Different uses. Different gratifications. Uses and Gratifications.

I can recall speaking with one of my current players about his first experiences with roleplay gaming.  His parents had bought him a copy of the Monster Manual (2e) and all he wanted to do was read about the monsters, their abilities, and then to draw them. There was no playing the game at all.  On the surface, it might be easy to come to the conclusion that a young man with a D&D sourcebook (or three) would be primarily interested in playing the game. You’d be wrong. According to Elihu Katz, the driving mechanism why someone chooses some media over another, is the desire to satisfy some need. Uses and gratifications theory goes on to focus our attention on the notion that if we understand the needs media consumers are trying to satisfy, we will be better able to explain the reasons for and the effects of media use. Uses and gratifications theory makes five key assumptions.

1. People use the media for their own purposes. Imagine a village noticeboard. The surface might contain any number of fliers, posters, or materials. There’s an advertisement for a local butcher. Directly beside the ad is a flier for a missing child. Beneath is a message in Thieves’ Cant explaining how to make contact with a local mafioso. Villagers use the notice board for different purposes and get different needs met by engaging in its communication. The reasons why a particular villager or adventurer hits up the notice board likely changes over time, as well. While previous models of media tried to claim that effects of media were uniform, uses and gratifications rejects that vision. Instead, it presumes that people choose their media freely, based on the needs they are experiencing at the time, with individual results.

2. People try to meet their needs (through their media choices). When my friend went to his bookshelf as a kid and had (presumably) more than one book from which to choose, he picked the one he thought would be most likely to satisfy the need(s) he was feeling at the time. Central to this theory, however, is the claim that even if you watched three young boys each choosing the Monster Manual off of their respective bedroom booksehelves, one can’t conclude simply from that that they are going to be affected by that book in the same way. Uses and gratifications would have us search deeper, asking which needs are attempting to be satisfied by choosing the Monster Manual.

3. Media compete for our attention and time. In a game I’m currently running, the town my players are in is politically divided into traditionalists and reformers.  Each faction has a newspaper. Every day, as my players walk through the square, barkers holler out headlines, trying to draw in NPCs and PCs alike. Each barker wants their papers purchased, their media consumed, and their messages paid attention to. In the real world, it’s no different: media companies vie for attention. They hope to gain followers, attention, and engagement through competition with each other and with all the other activities people might engage in (like playing more D&D, perchance). If media can identify the need you’re trying to satisfy (i.e., connection, belonging, entertainment, excitement, titillation), they can then craft their messages in such a way that strives to satisfy that need.

4. Media affect people differently. Simply put, because people are different, media will affect them differently. As I write this, I’m visiting my parents’ house in a rural, rustbelt town. I’ve seen more than one Confederate Flag since I came to town. I feel the effects of this mediated communication differently than the people who choose to fly that flag on their trucks or front porches, certainly. They’re using that symbol, communicating by it, and (I presume) feeling some sense of need-fulfillment and gratification by it. I’m not feeling gratified, though.

5. People know (and can articulate) why they use particular media. Uses and gratifications assumes that people know their own motivations. Of this, I am particularly skeptical. Since its inception, uses and gratifications has needed to rely on people’s self-reports of why they chose the media they did. A number of research efforts have been made which attempt to show that we know why we choose what we do, but just like which Bards’ College is best, the issue continues to be debated.

Reasons typically stated for why people choose the media they do include things like escape, enjoyment, information, entertainment, interaction/companionship, influencing, making money, self-presentation, promotion, and alleviating boredom. We almost certainly choose some of our media mindlessly, out of habit, and increasingly because that’s the media our social media algorithms deliver to our phones. Another reason consumers might develop a habit for some consumption is to satisfy an emotional attachment to characters or personalities presented in the media: a parasocial relationship. 

It’s probably happened to you: you develop an emotional attachment, potentially a strong one and not necessarily a positive one, with a media personality. I, for instance, know that the two hosts of my favorite D&D podcast would definitely be my friends. I feel like they’re my friends already...because I’ve listened in on their (mediated, edited) friendship for literally hundreds of hours. How could I help but to feel like we have some kind of relationship?

Choosing to listen to a D&D podcast, to watch Mazes and Monsters, or to pick up an old sourcebook and start sketching are likely means by which you are scratching some itch, fulfilling some need.  The jury’s still out on whether or not we can ever know why we (or anyone else) is really choosing the media they are. But, it’s enough for me to love this theory for the recognition it has for individuality and choice.