Last night at my writers’ association meeting, Dennis “Doc” Hensley (linguistics professor at Taylor University) lectured on the importance of knowing your audience.
Whether you’re planning a presentation, sending an e-mail, writing a blog post or even a Twitter update, knowing your audience is vitally important.
And if you grew up during the 1950s, ‘60s, ’70s, or even the ‘80s, you may not have a good handle on exactly who today’s audience is, says Hensley.
Most of today’s college freshmen were born in 1990. They grew up in a postmodern world in which the American Dream is dead. “Our younger generation does not believe progress is inevitable and that things will get better,” Hensley believes.
He defined several characteristics of the postmodern audience (I’m including just a couple of them here):
Pluralism – truth is a matter of cultural and individual expression. Pluralism is a positive in terms of a greater acceptance of diversity, but a negative in the sense that no truth is universal – anything goes.
Holism – personal happiness or fulfillment is based on integration with the world around us, particularly nature and ecology. Holism is a positive in that we’re more aware of our reliance on a balanced ecosystem, but a negative because of our tendency to assign divinity to nature of gods of any culture.
Hensley pointed out that the postmodern generation inhabits “a film-like world” in which people accept a celluloid reflection of the true world as its reality. Reality shows like American Idol and Survivor become people’s reality, as the audience seeks to gain a sense of control by choosing winners for the show and then worshiping them by forking out hundreds of dollars to attend their concerts and speaking engagements.
Today’s cinematic heroes – Batman, Wolverine, Iron Man – while they have some redeeming qualities of the superheroes of old, focus mainly on cruelty, violence, and debauchery of every kind. When it comes to righting a wrong, anything goes.
In a world in which readers can’t discern whether a novel such as The Da Vinci Code is fact or fiction, the lines between truth and fiction blur. When those lines blur, audiences begin to accept unsubstantiated opinions as facts and they simultaneously begin to doubt those who represent facts.
That is why it is so critical, says Hensley, that communicators “show this generation that the edicts of the postmodern world are not set in stone.” Those of us who believe there is hope must accept the responsibility to champion a worldview that prompts others to break free of negative cultural bonds.
How do you connect with your postmodern audience? Think about it, chime in with your thoughts, and in the next post, we’ll discuss practical ways to reach out to your audience.
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