Chapter 5: Understanding Context, Purpose & Audience
Your instructor may ask you to complete one or more of the following exercises.
- Find a vintage ad online. Draw a diagram of the Context of Production that you think the message was created in and Context of Use that you’re viewing it in. Do you find the ad persuasive? Why or why not? Do you think the overlap between the Context of Use and Context of Production circles has changed since the ad was created? Why?
- Think about an assignment that you’ve created recently. Then, look online to try to see how other people have delivered a similar message in a different genre. For example, if you had to write an essay in a history class about Winston Churchill, you might find this post on the Reddit subreddit r/AskHistorians or the Epic Rap Battles of History episode about Winston Churchill vs Theodore Roosevelt. How does the genre impact the message? What’s left out and what’s included? Does it appeal to a different audience? Write a paragraph or two about your findings.
- Write a critical paragraph about something you have big opinions about. Be sure to follow the criteria for writing critically.
Attribution
This chapter is an adaptation of Chapter 5.2 “Think, then write: Writing preparation”in Business Communication for Successand is used under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 International license. It also contains material from Introduction to Professional Communications is (c) 2018 by Melissa Ashman and is licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
This chapter is also an adaptation of Audience Analysis: Just Who Are These Guys” by David McMurrey, which is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International License.
