Internet uses and gratifications: A survey in the Indian context

Uses and gratifications (U&G) theory, aids in the assessment of peoples’ motivations for media usage, access and to understand their attitude towards a particular medium. In this paper this theory has been applied to derive the Internet gratification structure of Internet users in the Indian context. This study proceeds in four stages. First, six gratifications for Internet use namely self development, wide exposure, user friendly, relaxation, career opportunities, and global exchange were identified using the exploratory factor analysis. Then the factors were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. Next with the use of t-tests the study identified the gratifications on which males and females differ significantly. Finally, with the use of discriminant analysis it has been shown that the light and heavy users of Internet differ on some of the gratification factors obtained in the study.