Consuming Television Crime Drama: A Uses and Gratifications Approach

Abstract

This article employs uses and gratifications theory to conduct an audience analysis on crime drama viewership. To the best of our knowledge, this theory has not yet specifically been applied to this genre, thus providing a basis for the research study. Three independent variables (age, sex, frequency of crime drama viewing) were tested against four dependent variables (curiosity/information, identification, social interaction, and entertainment), as well as all variables together (full gratification) in order to determine if they were statistically significant predictors of each specific type of gratification. Results indicated that frequency of viewing crime dramas was a statistically significant predictor for only full gratification and curiosity/information. The study‟s limitations and future research directions are discussed.