Examples for Considering Audience in Business Writing

Locker and Kaczmarek (p. 12) give us a model for message analysis in business settings that focuses on six aspects to think about when “encoding” or “decoding” a message:

(P)urpose

(A)udience

(I)nformation

(B)enefits

(O)bjections

(C)ontext

While this, like any other model, is only intended to provide a frame of reference for an analysis, and not a depiction of reality, it does focus on good things to think about composing texts in business settings.

Below are links to three business “texts,” each one written for a radically different purpose and in a different context for the others.  As you review them, think about their intended (and perhaps even, unintended) audiences:

  1. Letter from James G. Robinson to Lindsay Lohan regarding the film, Georgia Rule.
  2. Owners’ manual for Sig Sauer Classic pistols.
  3. The new California Lottery website, including the short film, “Snowfall” (1:03).

Who are the primary audiences for these texts?  What secondary audiences exist for them?  Do they have initial audiences?  Gatekeepers?  Watchdogs?  If so, who?

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