Knowing Your Audience Is Key!

As a future media practitioner, I think it’s very vital to know who your audience is. Who do you want to reach? Target audience characteristic plays an important role in the elaboration likelihood model. We must study and know about our audiences. I would try to pick the best time to deliver the message effectively. To be able to persuade audiences, these factors are very important: make sure they are not hungry, tired from work, school, or driving. Is the audience in a good mood or bad mood, is it too late at night? All these questions need to be evaluated. These factors can influence the audience’s attention and influence how people receive your intended message. 

Another important factor to persuade the audience is to find a topic that they are interested in. How receptive do you think they will be to the topic? Having information from trustworthy sources, statistics and references will add more credibility to your message. It is vital the actual message is well thought out, written concisely with correct grammar and style that is appropriate to the target audience. These items are referred to as message characteristics. 

Including information audiences are interested in persuades them to want to learn more about the topic being presented. The information must be presented that an audience can relate to. When information is presented in a way an audience can’t relate to, the audience will lose attention and process it in what is termed a superficial way. The peripheral characteristic is a superficial learning process. When not receptive to what is being presented, an audience will focus on how attractive speakers are, or how impressive their presentation slides look instead of the message. A receptive audience will be using what is termed center characteristics to process information. This means the audience is engaged in what is being presented and receptive to the message. 

In conclusion, when the listener is highly motivated and interested in what is being presented, they are more receptive to the content of the message. Knowing your audience is key.