Understanding Audience

Definition and Importance

An audience refers to the group of readers or listeners that a text is aimed at. Understanding the audience is crucial when analysing a text.
How a text is written can often be influenced by who it’s expected to reach. This can affect the language, style, and content used.
Identifying the target audience can support in understanding the purpose of the text and the techniques used to engage readers.

Identifying Audience

The age, interests, and background of an audience can be key in identifying the target demographic.
The format and platform of the content can be a clue towards its intended audience. A children’s book, blog post on a specific topic, or an academic journal each have different target audiences.
The text may directly address its audience using pronouns like ‘you’, ‘we’, or ‘us’, which can help indicate who the text is aimed at.

Audience Expectation

Audiences can have certain expectations based on the genre or type of the text. For example, readers of a newspaper expect to be informed, while those reading a novel might want to be entertained.
A writer caters to these expectations through the use of appropriate tone, language, and content.
Breaking these expectations can serve as a tool to surprise, confuse or challenge the audience in a way that supports the purpose of the text.

Audience Engagement

Depending on the target audience, a writer may use various strategies to engage their attention and interest.
These strategies can include rhetorical questions to provoke thought, anecdotes to establish a connection, or factual information to build credibility.
The use of emotionally impactful language or imagery can also be used to engage the audience on an emotional level, driving them to feel a certain way or take specific action.

Evaluating Effect on Audience

Examining how the text might affect its intended audience is an essential part of text analysis.
Consider how effective the text is in achieving its purpose, and how the use of different literary techniques contribute to this.
Always aim to support claims about the potential audience reaction with evidence from the text.

Understanding audience can help when analysing a text’s effectiveness and purpose. Remember to consider who the text is intended for when exploring language, tone, and content.