Audience analysis is normally carried out by any technical writers when they intend to undertake a project of any size. It involves assessment of the target audience to make sure that all the information availed to them is correct and relevant to them (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 2009). The audience’s age, culture, knowledge and education among other factors need consideration during definition of the audience.
Their tastes are also established for the sake of maintaining connection and communication between the writer and the target population (McQuail, 1997). Without audience analysis, the written message may end up not reaching the intended destination or otherwise communicate the wrong things to the audience. The model under consideration is the local commerce chamber of Alamagordo that is responsible at the local level of engaging the business community locally.
Illustrate the message’s view of the audience and stakeholders based on the written profile.
The website of Alamagordo Chamber of Commerce community profile introduces the community to the audience. The message views the audience as people who have not been there before. It highlights the geographic site of the area by stating the county and state of Alamagordo’s location. Further, the general climate of the area is indicated as mild and good for anyone to visit or even live (“Community profile”, 2011). The description provided here suggests that the audience targeted is people outside of the town and the sole purpose of attracting them to invest in the area.
The message looks at the welfare of its members in terms of explaining the business opportunities available within the area. By going through the history of the area, the economic activities of the area includes, logging, tourism and health related facilities. However, the main activities are tourism and light manufacturing industries. The implication here is that the stakeholders of Alamagordo Chamber of Commerce receive enough attention in the profile. Promoting the businesses by attracting tourists within the area will translate to improved sales on the part of the stakeholders.
The view brought out by the message is that the audience is that of well-educated people or those looking for business opportunities. The message is brief and to the point as compared to a long and tiring message, written to an uneducated audience. The audience comes out as mature in terms of age and economically able to invest. The fact that there is a whole paragraph explaining the presence of an Air Force Base in the area suggests that the target audience is concerned with security. They are also not limited to any particular religion or race and the message directly outlines that the area is micropolitan (Searls, 2001).
Create your own analysis of the community stakeholders and audience using the demographics, geographics, psychographics, sociographics, usergraphics, and webographics described in this chapter.
The community stakeholders consist of highly educated population with a goal of establishing businesses across the area. Although some immigrants have migrated from different parts of the country especially to look for employment in the manufacturing and tourism industries in the area, these form only a small percentage of the population. The immigrants only make up a small percentage of the population within the area. Further, their main goal is employment instead of investing within the region. This means that the community comprises of both owners of businesses as well as their employees meaning people of different income levels.
The audience includes people of both genders mainly because the two main sectors do not discriminate on this basis. The community has Christians, Muslims Hindus and other religions of the world all from different races and cultures. The scenario presents a case of mixed community that has no outstanding religion, race or culture hence the need for consideration incase any message is to reach the audience. The people of Alamagordo are firmly based on a lifestyle of fun, sports and relaxation. This forms a good place for business all year round especially due to the good climate. The community is however reserved and attach great respect to the history of the land and the environment around them hence the reason for tourists.
Give two recommendations that would improve the message, based on audience analysis.
The community profile as presented has too many unnecessary information that needs omission and hence a brief statement. Too much information or in-depth analysis of a particular scenario may lead to confusion or frustration of the readers. They usually tend to feel obliged to read the information already provided but if there is ambiguity in the message, they get bored (Stuart, Sarow, & Stuart, 2007). In the Alamagordo community profile, I would highly recommend to remove the explanation about an Air force base being present in the area.
The message on community profile in the website is not necessarily wrong. In fact all the details provided are necessary considering the audience to whom the site targets in the community. The recommendation would however be to improve the organization and structure of the message (Okongo, 2007). For example, inclusion of examples of recreational facilities would create an interest in the mind of the readers who would wish to visit the area.
Provide your rationale as to why your version would be better than the original.
Logically, the stakeholders would like to feel secure both for their families and their businesses. However, in the site too many details are provided about security which seems unnecessary and boring to the reader. The business people who are the target audience of the message are busy. Therefore, digression into details would make them feel as if they are wasting time. Most of them would prefer short notes and if possible in point forms to reduce the time used in going through the message. A short and direct message for the target audience is sufficient (Grenfell, 1998).
The information provided in the message does not have a good organization and structure. The message would have communicated easily to the reader if the writer would separate the most important points from the less important ones (Kosicki, 1998). As mentioned earlier, the audience consists of educated men and women who can scan through a message in the shortest time possible. They are not ready to use too much time going through the message to filter information, but they would prefer the writer to do the same for them. Therefore, the audience would understand the message more clearly with an improved organization and structure of the overall website and profile.
Generally, any writer whether professional or otherwise needs to have a clear picture of the target audience. They will be able to know how to frame the message for the audience to understand clearly. Audience analysis cannot be ignored by anyone intending to communicate to a group of people both written and spoken.
References
“Community Profile” (2011), Alamagordo Chamber of Commerce. Web.
Grenfell, R. L. (1998). A content analysis of interactivity on the internet’s world wide web. California State University, Fresno). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Web.
Kosicki, G. M. (1998). Audience analysis. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 75(3), 659-659. Web.
McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning P. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book. New Harbinger Publications.
McQuail, D. (1997). Audience Analysis. SAGE.
Okongo, A. (2007) Audience Analysis in Skilled Communication. AuthorHouse.
Searls, T. (2001, Jun 26). Effectively communicating in today’s web-enabled world. Journal Record, pp. 1-1. Web.
Stuart, B. E., Sarow, M. S., & Stuart, L. (2007). Integrated business communication: In a global marketplace. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.