Identifying an Audience

Who is your audience?

Even though this is probably the shortest question I have written about, it has caused far more trouble than the others.

Each component of my project reaches a different audience. It would be nice to think that my thesis paper is more digestible than most other scholarly literature, but I mean, let's be real... At a stark contrast then, the audience for my picture book is children. My audience for something like the STEAM expo will be an even broader group of people.

I think the most troubling part of this audience predicament is that I still need to work on basic communication with different types of people. In the future, academic communication will be necessary but I question whether this year's focus on an academic audience was wise.

Honestly though, if I was solely working on communication in things like the picture book, I would have probably been disconcerted as I can tell you that was probably the most difficult SDA I've attempted.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm far from proficient at reaching either audience. But I know that I need a balance of practice in both. To me, this begs the question of whether there is a correct audience.

But maybe that question means the goal is less an ability to find your audience and more an ability to be a versatile communicator. When the audience is found, whoever it may be, our task becomes to deliver something valuable to that audience. (248)