Knowing Your Audience

Question 1

Knowing our audience helps us to decide:

Answer 1

• What to keep in
• What to leave out
• What style to write in
• What tone to write in
• What form to produce your writing in

Question 2

Diversity in Audiences

Answer 2

• Includes age, class, disability, gender, race,
  ethnicity, education, attitudes, beliefs and values, culture, traditions, language, power of different kinds, ideology, faith where people live, knowledge about your subject.

Question 3

Steps in doing Audience Analysis

Answer 3

Step 1: DISTINGUISH BETWEEN YOUR VARIOUS AUDIENCES

Step 2: PRIORITIZE WITHIN YOUR AUDIENCE

Step 3: PICTURE YOUR AUDIENCE

Step 4: USE THE AUDIENCE ANALYSIS MATRIX

Question 4

Step 1: DISTINGUISH BETWEEN YOUR VARIOUS AUDIENCES

Answer 4

• Make a list of which categories of people, including individuals, are part of your audience.
• Examples:
  
  • members of the community
  • shop owners
  • shoppers
  • leadership – religious, schools, organisations,
    local government
• youth

Question 5

Step 2: PRIORITIZE WITHIN YOUR AUDIENCE

Answer 5

• Ask yourself which of all the categories and individuals you are mainly writing for. You need to be firm when you do this.
• Then you can decide who your secondary audience is, and
  who your audience is.

Question 6

Step 3: PICTURE YOUR AUDIENCE

Answer 6

• Once you have chosen your primary audience, it is useful to
  look at it again. In the example we are using, who are the shoppers?
• Keep asking questions about your primary audience until you feel you have created a picture of them in your mind, including questions around diversity.
• Then do this for your secondary and tertiary audience.
• All of these lay the basis for Step Four.

Question 7

Step 4: USE THE AUDIENCE ANALYSIS MATRIX

Answer 7

• The Audience Analysis Matrix is tool for you to fill in about your audience.
• It helps you to think through your audience very carefully. You put yourself in your audience’s shoes, and understand them
  better.
• The better you understand your audience, the more effective your piece of writing.
• Remember to keep your objective in mind all the way along.