A term of endearment post.
If you can feel positioning and motion inherent in words, then you may also experience how your point of view can flip with single word.
Audience is a word that occasionally makes me feel like I’m jumping between my own and others’ points of view. Kind of like a circus performer.
Holding space for both opposing spaces while writing coherently is the trick. Annnd, I’m working on it. A call for comments is near the bottom of the page.
Breaking Down ‘Audience’
“Audience” represents a steady state, a barter-able thing, plus two opposing sides of a power dynamic, depending upon usage.
1) Most common: Audience is an assembly of people experiencing a certain thing.
GROUP is named AUDIENCE, and they gather and abide.
2) An Audience is also a group one communicates to. In my case, I write for/to YOU. In order for any writer to choose a topic, they likely need to feel some kind of connection to move forward. After all, writing is a lot of work.
WRITER provides for, or reaches out to an AUDIENCE (audience is a relational group)
3) In another meaning, one might be granted an audience with a head of state or important person. That is, an individual may be given permission to be in the presence of an authority.
PERSON is given an AUDIENCE with one more powerful (audience is an object which can be maneuvered, bartered, or utilized)
3) An archaic meaning of audience, is to have a formal hearing.
PERSON has a right to be heard (audience is an individual exercising their civic rights)
Marketing Audiences
In marketing, Audience refers to those giving or likely to give attention to – or buy– your thing. That is, simpatico people who may also wonder about, or be amused by, or supported by, the same product, content or experience.
Consciously growing this audience is a wise move to monetize or sell more stuff. That’s if selling more stuff to support your people is your aim. It may not be, marketing is not everything.
In communicating from a solo place, it is also helpful to write to friends instead of to an audience. In this blog, I write for 100 subscribers of varying interests, closeness, and careers, and all of whom I find brilliant and possessing depth.
I think of my readers as intellectual friends, and some of you as friend friends (like if we catch up over food, books, and walks in the woods now and again). Some of you, I honestly just don’t know, but would love to hear from you by email as to what you’ve been wondering about lately, or facing?
Perhaps I’ll have insight or a story to share. If not, I’d love to hear from you anyway. Kind of like a proper introduction. Have a great week, Elizabeth
