This entry reviews the scope and character of the current research based on the uses and gratifications approach, and discusses challenges faced by contemporary uses and gratifications studies. From a theoretical perspective, the uses and gratifications approach emerged as a response to earlier approaches that perceived the mass media as a generator of strong and uniform effects across individuals and groups. The new approach became prevalent as television was transforming people’s media ecologies, prompting a need for approaches that more adequately fit the emerging media landscape. Given the significant changes in the current media ecology, we face a similar situation today, and, as with the diffusion of television, the penetration of new media again seems to be hospitable for the uses and gratifications approach