Why do we use $rootScope.$broadcast in AngularJS?

$rootScope basically functions as an event listener and dispatcher.

To answer the question of how it is used, it used in conjunction with rootScope.$on;

$rootScope.$broadcast("hi");

$rootScope.$on("hi", function(){
    //do something
});

However, it is a bad practice to use $rootScope as your own app’s general event service, since you will quickly end up in a situation where every app depends on $rootScope, and you do not know what components are listening to what events.

The best practice is to create a service for each custom event you want to listen to or broadcast.

.service("hiEventService",function($rootScope) {
    this.broadcast = function() {$rootScope.$broadcast("hi")}
    this.listen = function(callback) {$rootScope.$on("hi",callback)}
})