How do I work out the text's audience?

Question

Jodie Bennett · Answer

For the non-fiction paper you are usually told who the audience are.  Always PAF a text - Purpose (entertain, inform, persuade etc), Audience (students, parents, young people etc) and Form (letter, blog, speech etc).  For fiction writing in general write for a wide audience unless the question directs you to a specific audience.

Lucy Cooper · Answer

This a really important element to consider and you should try to build up a picture of the audience...if you don't know who the reader is, you won't know what they find interesting. Remember you are not the intended reader of the texts!If it is for the reading questions for Language Papers Two, as you are reading the extracts ask yourself the following questions:What is this text mainly about?Who would be interested in this topic? Who is the author trying to reach?Who would open this up and read or listen to it If it was sent to them in a message or email? Who would click and read this if they came across it on social media? Who would send this onto friends or colleagues?What would they find interesting? What would their view be in relation to the view expressed by the author?What are their other views?Are their any clues that tell you who the reader could be? E.G. which newspaper is the text from? Who would typically read that paper?I hope this helps!

Andrea Powell · Answer

The best way to figure out the audience is to consider the PURPOSE. If the purpose is to persuade people to buy a product, then one thing you can know about the audience is that they are people who have money to make purchases and have free will to make buying decisions. If the purpose is to make people laugh then consider what you are laughing about and what demographic (age, gender, profession, education level, social class, etc.) would find that funny and you have your audience.

Vicki Edwards · Answer

For GCSE papers when initially reading over extracts you should be looking to identify purpose, audience and format. Purpose - This is why the text has been written in the first place. Is the writer looking to persuade you of something; instruct you to do something? There are 9 purposes in all that are good to know for GCSE level: persuade, advise, argue, inform, analyse, evaluate, describe, entertain, instruct. Audience - Once you have worked out why something is being written, you can then move on to who is it being written for. You'll find that some texts appear to have rather wide audiences and some which are rather niche. Wider groups could be relating to gender and age. Small audiences could be based on a special interest that the text is centred upon e.g. theatre or fishing. Format - This is nice and straightforward! You now need to look at how a piece is written e.g. poster, newspaper article, speech.

Jacob Berry · Answer

To understand a text's audience, you need two things: to understand the author of the text, and when they were writing (otherwise known as context). Understanding the general context of when a text was written allows you to deduce who the audience was, and what their perceptions might have been. Meanwhile, understanding the author gives a more precise view of who they aimed their work at, why they wrote in the first place, and what parts of their own perceptions influenced their work. I hope this helps!

How do I work out the text's audience?

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