GRATYFIKOWANIE POTRZEB PRZEZ MASS MEDIA A POZIOM KOMPETENCJI SPOŁECZNYCH

The uses & gratification approach is one of the prominent research strategies in the mass media psychology. There are two main directions of research within this framework. The first one assumes that the mass media, particularly interactive web applications, are possible ways to deal with deficits in the social skills. This approach also assumes that the human needs not fulfilled in the natural social environment may be gratified by mass media. The second direction of research emphasizes that the mass media are not an alternative form to socialize and communicate for users with specific disabilities, but on the contrary, strengthen these deficits (or abilities) of the users. The present study verified the role of social skills in the scope of mass media gratifications proposed by McQuail (2007). It was hypothesized that the low skills will be associated with stronger gratifications gained by the mass media, and the higher social skills will be connected with higher gratifications gained outside the mass media  There were 1.034 participants (53.3% women), M age=32.09 (SD age=14.42) who completed two questionnaires Social Competence Questionnaire and Mass Media Gratifications Questionnaire. The results supported the second research hypothesis, i.e. mass media are not the alternative way to cope with the deficits in social skills, but rather they catalyze and strengthen the characteristics of users due to the model “rich gets richer, poor gets poorer”. People with high level of mass media gratification and social environmental gratification are characterized by the highest level of social skills. Moreover, users with the lowest levels of social skills are the ones whose needs are least gratified by both mass media and their social environment.