Antecedents of adolescents' motives for television use

According to the uses and gratifications approach, individuals try to satisfy needs by means of media use. The empirical application of this approach is often problematic because of the concept of "needs." It is argued that the focus should shift to social and psychological factors as direct explanations of behavior. This article hypothesizes that adolescents' television use for mood management is predicted by factors related to the school and family contexts. Results support the hypothesis that tensions generated within the social contexts of home and school life are directly and indirectly related to the use of television for mood management.