Preparing audience-centered writing requires that the writer knows and understands the audience members he or she is trying to reach. To properly do this the writer needs to first focus on gaining information about the intended audience. For a  writer to create an audience-centered work means the writer must first be prepared from the very start. This means that the writer needs to know and understand their message, medium, and the public (Newsom & Haynes, 2013). The writer needs to understand what they are going to be writing and where the message will be going; writing a message for social media is vastly different from writing for a magazine. To create a well-written message that is audience-centered the writer needs to know about the public or audience that they are targeting their message towards. To know about the audience the writer must first gain information about the intended audience of their message. The writer needs to learn about the characteristics, beliefs, and values of the intended audience (Newsom & Haynes, 2013).  

Methods 

There are a variety of ways for a writer to gain information about their intended audience, but some of the methods are only useable for certain audiences. Writers can learn about their audience through surveys, websites, social media, communication, personal impressions, interviews, and statistics. A writer needs to decide which method is best for learning about their audience based on who their audience is.  

Explanation of Methods 

Surveys are questionnaires that include questions ranging from multiple-choice to open-ended essay-style questions.  

The use of websites would have the writer looking at already existing information that is published online. 

Social media would allow the writer to look at the profiles of individuals that fit their targeted audience and pose questions directly to those individuals.  

Communication, personal impressions, and interviews can provide useful information to the writer and they can be formed through in-person interaction or through online forms of communication like Zoom interviews. 

Statistics can be a useful form of information that can be used to form a broad picture of an intended audience it lacks the specific understanding one can gain from interviews and surveys but is generally less time-consuming and can often be found through Google searches. 

Specific Location-Based Audience 

For example, if the intended audience is the students of a particular high school then the writer could use the school’s website, surveys distributed to the students, interviews with the school’s staff, social media, and statistics on the school. The writer could learn about the characteristics of the students from the school website, the beliefs of the students from surveys, the personality of the students in general from staff interviews, the values of the students from social media, and the number of students and their age range from school statistics. This all would be valuable information that could be used by the writer to write an audience-centered message. 

This method could also be used if the writer was writing non-fiction that was designed for a location-specific audience. For instance, if the book was meant for homeowners in South Carolina the writer could instead focus on sending out surveys to homeowners in South Carolina and then use the survey answers to gain insight into the needs, wants, and interests of their intended audience. This would allow the writer to make sure their writing stayed on target in relation to their intended audience.  

References 

Newsom, D., & Haynes, J. (2013). Public Relations Writing: Forms & Style (10th ed.). Cengage Learning.