The audience-centered uses and gratifications approach focuses on individual selection and usage behavior, with the basic idea of the explanatory model being that recipients actively select media content based on a variety of motives. Specific expectations of media arise from different social and psychological needs. This results in concrete usage motives, which ultimately determine the choice of certain media offers. If the recipient’s expectations are met, the recipient obtains the desired gratification, thereby increasing the probability of selecting the same media offer again in the future. The uses and gratifications approach, significantly bolstered by the seminal study of Katz, Blumler, and Gurewitch (1973), thus assumes that users are aware of their motives and are able to articulate them. For many decades, media use and effects research has referred to the uses and gratifications approach, which has witnessed a resurgence in popularity in the context of new media. The advent of the Internet and new media has provided the approach with numerous new impulses, as audience activity has been greatly expanded by digital usage and navigation options. Nevertheless, criticism of this approach has never fully subsided over its long history.