Class Notes: Identifying the Audience

Helpful hints on identifying the audience (typical reader of the work being produced)

Ask yourself theses questions:

1.What is the age range?
2.What is the gender?
3.What is the cultural background?
4.Where are they located?
5.What is the education level?
6.What is the economical level?

After answering these questions take a “snapshot”.

Derek helped our class to envision this audience for Tomson Highway’s essay, “What a Certain Visionary Once Said (1992)”.

Male, 35-50, Caucasian, highly educated, business professional, drives a nice car or takes the subway, urban/ suburban living, reads The Global and Mail, drinks Starbucks, wares a tailored suit, and Italian leather shoes.

Wow, all this from knowing where and when the essay was published!

Lesson learned:Take the time to consider and research who will be reading the material!

What in my understanding from the lecture that the process is little different then what you mentioned in your lecture notes.

We started with figuring out who are the audience on the basis of the evidence provided in the essay.

We Look carefully in the article. Sometimes, need to read the additional information provided with the article. Autobiography of the author helps, because most of the time authors life reflects what he write.

In Tomson Highway essay we found two strong evidence first one the article starts with sentence “ As you travel from Winnipeg ” the word “you” means reader and he travel from Winnipeg, which is the name of the city. So the reader lives in the city. When we read the additional information about the article we observed it says this essay first appeared as an insert in The Bank of Montreal Annual Report ( 1992). This statement gives a clear picture of our audience.
According to the Demographics :
• Age
• Gender / Sex
• Ethnicity / Culture
• Location
• Income
• Education
Considering the evidence we found in the article, only now we can take a snap shot of the demographics and can define our audience are :
Essay audience are of age between 35-50, men, Caucasian, Urban / Sub-urban, with high income and high education.

After describing the audience, now if we read the article it will be easier for us to understand what author want to convey the message.

I hope this information will help you.