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Think about TV ads. Analyze. Ask questions. |
Consider these ideas for your own compositions. |
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| WHO
IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE?
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WHO
IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?
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A specific "target audience" - as a sub-group within the much larger total audience covered by the mass media - is a concept emphasized by radio, television, and advertising only during the past generation. When broadcasting first began, some seventy years ago, audience concern was very haphazard and naive. Most people thought that the function of TV was to deliver information and entertainment to the public. However, broadcasters soon saw their function was to deliver audiences to the advertisers. As ad costs increased, sellers became more interested in avoiding the "waste" of broadcasting messages to people who were not potential buyers of their specific products Two new strategies emerged. In one strategy ("narrowcasting"), advertisers used other media (esp. mailing lists and new channels on cable TV) to pinpoint audiences for specific items. But, the major "cost effective" strategy used by the radio and TV broadcasters was demographic research to identify their audiences more precisely: who was watching what program. The advertising industry now spends several billion dollars a year with various research companies (Nielsen, Roper, Arbitron, etc.) which attempt to identify or estimate audiences. Using sophisticated techniques, they are now better able to identify different segments of the audience (by age, sex, race, income, and spending patterns) related to when, where, and what they see and hear. Young children, as they watch TV, don't know that they are not the target audience for most ads; often they will complain about "stupid" ads which are really directed at other people within the total audience. Some adults are equally egocentric or provincial because it's really hard for them to grasp the immensity and diversity of a viewing audience of 80 or 100 million people.
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The mental concept that you have of your audience is going to influence what you say and how you say it: your tone toward the reader, attitude toward the topic, the choice of words, the examples used, the authorities cited, and the references and allusions made. If you have a clear and fixed idea of your audience, writing is much easier than if you have only a vague idea of your audience, or if you waver and keep shifting. Writing for "anybody" or "everybody" often ends up as writing for "nobody." Yet, there are relatively few situations (such as personal letters, and some office memos) in which writers have absolute certainty about who is going to be the reader. Thus, writers usually have to imagine an audience, a mental activity which should begin early in the writing process and continue throughout. Keep asking yourself. "What do I want to say? To Whom? In some work situations (e.g. writing instructions), it's fairly easy to identify the general kind of reader. Then, the next step is to specify what that reader probably already knows and feels. In other writing situations, it's more difficult to imagine a reader. This often forces writers to examine their own motives and purposes. In classroom situations, some instructors will specify a target audience of peers, or of outsiders. If this doesn't occur, ask for clarification. If the instructor tells you to "write for me," recognize that you need to do a thoughtful audience analysis (i.e. "psyche out the prof"). Writers never know for sure about their audience, but they spend a great deal of time trying to imagine how the reader is going to respond: Is this clear? Will this be understood? Is this the right word?
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| | Welcome | Purpose | Audience | Limits | Structure | Attention | Confidence | Explicit | Implicit | Response| Omission | |
