Ma`rifat Farhangi Ejtemaei

The main idea of the theory of "use and satisfaction" is that the media has little ability to influence the audiences and it is the audience who imposes their needs and desires on the media and affect its process of decision-making. According to this theory, media should be audience-oriented. This means that the main concern of is to satisfy the audience's desires, that is, bringing pleasure to them and easing their pain in order to attract more audience. The theorists of this theory claim that this view contradicts some explicit Quranic teachings. The holy Quran does not ignore man's natural inclinations including his inclination for pleasure; moreover, some of its teachings are based on them. From the Quranic perspective, man's real needs are those needs whose satisfaction contributes to harnessing his natural talents. Conversely, secularists regard man's animal and instinctive needs to be real, so they demand form media to meet them,. According to the holy Quran, however, it is only by meeting man's real needs that people can be brought nearer to the ultimate aim of creation. Therefore, an ideal media which adopts a religious criterion should take into consideration audience's rational needs, interests and desires. Taking into consideration the main theme of the aforementioned theory, the present paper tries to elucidate the view of the Quran on man's needs and way of meeting them.