Explaining and analyzing audiences: A social cognitive approach to selectivity and media use OSCAR PETERS, MATTHIAS RICKES, SVEN JÖCKEL, CHRISTIAN VON CRIEGERN and ALEXANDER VAN DEURSEN Abstract This study explored LaRose and Eastin’s (2004) model of media atten- dance, within a European context. It extended the uses and gratifications (U and G) paradigm within the framework of social cognitive theory (SCT) by instituting new operational measures of gratifications sought, reconstructed as outcome expectations. Although the model of media atten- dance offers some promising steps forward in measuring media selectivity and usage, and to some extent is applicable to another context of media use, the relative importance of outcome expectancies in explaining media usage and selectivity is not fully supported. Keywords: media use, social cognitive theory, uses and gratifications Introduction One of the most prominent research approaches in communication re- search that focuses on media use and selectivity is the U and G approach. Although the descriptive benefits of U and G are very extensive and sig- nificant and may well be sufficient to account for the continued appeal of the approach (McQuail, 2001), the explaining and predicting quality of U and G for media use and selectivity is less pronounced. Also, there is criticism about the measurement and analysis of retrospective self- reported gratifications (e.g., Babrow, 1988; Messaris, 1977; Hendriks Vettehen and Van Snippenburg, 2002; Peters and Ben Allouch, 2005). Despite attempts to produce a more rigorous and comprehensive theory, several flaws continued to plague the perspective, and U and G fell out of favor with some mass communication scholars for several decades (Ruggiero, 2000). The arrival of new media (especially the Internet) and new uses of existing media have been a stimulus to research, and one of the strengths of the U and G approach came into its own - the capacity Communications 31 (2006), 279-308 03412059/2006/031-0279 DOI 10.1515/COMMUN.2006.019  Walter de Gruyter