Audience Analysis Assignment:
Analyzing Your Three Separate Audiences:
Questions for Discussion
When analyzing the different groups your policy will effect, consider both the following general and topic-specific questions:
1) What is the power relationship between who your group represents and each of the groups? Do you have the power necessary to enforce compliance? What would you need to do to develop more power? Is it worth it to force compliance or will that only damage your long term goals in relationship to this audience?
Example: Your group represents the UI administration and you would like to enforce a new rule that no one drive to campus; in this scenario, you would do well to have the Moscow Police enforce the rule because a) they have more power to do so and b) it will deflect anger away from yourselves.
Example: Your group represents faculty who want no cell phone usage in classes. But there are more students on campus than faculty, so if only the faculty enforces the rule you risk rebellion. You could gain more power by appealing to the administration to enforce the rule and thereby deflect anger toward them (students already see admin as the source of new rules) or you could even get the Moscow police to enforce the rule as a law. But this last option would be foolhardy as most everyone would see it as excessive force, and this would turn them away from supporting your policy.
2) What degree of formality is appropriate for the group, considering both the group itself and the power relationship between each group and who you represent? Will, for example, being very formal with the group show that you respect them or will it suggest your relationship is cold and impersonal? How formal do you think the audience wants you to communicate?
Example: Consider the type of language and choice of words you use when talking to your best friends and how it differs from how you speak to your grandmother. In this scenario speaking too formally to friends is probably as unwise as not formally enough to granny.
Example: If your policy will be difficult to impose, sometimes framing it in formal, legalistic language may make it sound like a law, not just a policy. Some people may be persuaded by that language but others may think you are being too uptight.
3) What are the different reasons the different groups will either tend to agree or disagree with the decision?
Example: As the UI administration your policy states that all faculty, staff and students must attend the Student Rec. Center three times a week to workout. Faculty probably don't want to go because we are old and saggy and it's really embarrassing to be seen exposing our horrific oldness in front of your budding hotness; staff don't want to go because they don't own a pair of shorts...or because they are paid hourly and are already on campus for nine hours and often live out of town (so, the rule requires time they do not have, which is not an issue for faculty); students already go to the gym and so are more likely to comply.
4) In general, what motivates the different groups to engage in certain behaviors? How will you emphasize different and similar reader benefits for each group?
Example: Mandatory gym classes for faculty, staff and students: faculty might be persuaded by scientific data showing working out will help us live longer; staff might be charts showing the long term cost savings of being healthy or, more directly, breaks on health insurance premiums; students will be persuaded by the chance to increase their overall hotness and odds of getting lucky.
5) Which groups are likely to try to "get around" the new policy, and how? What information must you include to:
~ Make the new law so clear it can't be "accidentally" broken?
~ Dissuade the readers (primary and secondary) from breaking the new law?
~ Cover the legal technicalities briefly and clearly without sounding like a lawyer?
~ "Lay down the law" while still maintaining goodwill?
6) Although many of the above questions infer this last question, this will be the hardest part: What specific things must you say in the message to build and maintain good-will with the different groups? Based on your own experiences, how do these three very different discourse communities tend to build good-will among themselves?
7) How might any of your letters be used or abused by other audiences you aren't addressing directly? If your letters were to show up on the front page of the newspaper or in the editorial section of the Argonaut, how can you ensure they will still reflect well on your group and those you represent? (This is another way of thinking about question #6)