Ruggiero asserts that the emergence of computer-mediated communications has revived the significance of the uses and gratifications perspective (3). He also states "uses and gratifications has always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass communications medium (3). .
I assert that since the Internet is still in its early stages of existence, the audience is not yet using this new technology to its greatest advantages. The best applications for the audience of the Internet are still being perfected or have not yet been developed or even imagined. This study applies the uses and gratifications theory to the Internet to determine what future uses of the Internet may be coming.
Literature Review.
Since the birth of the Internet, its intended functions and actual use have been at odds. The uses have been studied many times over in different ways. Some suggest that it should be studied as a medium of communication. Newhagen and Rafaeli propose utilizing a uses and gratifications perspective in studying the Internet. They hold this belief because of the broad range of communication opportunities that the Internet offers. Uses and gratifications is an "approach to the study of media audiences which proposes that audience members' consumption of media output is motivated and directed towards the gratification of certain individually experienced needs- (O'Sullivan et al 325).
Ruggiero states, "some mass communications scholars have contended that uses and gratifications is not a rigorous science theory- (3). He goes against these scholars and sides with Newhagen and Rafaeli when he declares that the emergence of computer-mediated communications has revived the significance of the uses and gratifications perspective (3). He also states "uses and gratifications has always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass communications medium (3).