Audience

Ede and Lunsford’s essay “Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked; The Role of Audience in Composition and Pedagogy” focuses on the conversation surrounding audience in writing. Ede and Lunsford address both sides of this argument, noting that most scholars stand on the Audience Addressed side of the argument. This dichotomy focuses on whether or not writers should actively address their audience in their work, who the audience really is, and the role that the audience plays.

Both sides of the argument maintain that the writer must, in part, envision their audience. Because there is obviously no pre-formed sample size of a writer’s audience, the writer must “create [audience] according to their own experiences and expectations” (81). Ede and Lunsford discuss Mitchell and Taylor as key voices in the Audience Addressed conversation. Mitchell and Taylor stress that “the audience not only judges writing, but motivates it” (81), however, Ede and Lunsford provide no examples as to how this happens. Ede and Lunsford point out that Mitchel and Taylor’s philosophy emphasizes the importance of the audience more than the writer, stating that readers “actively contribute to the meaning of what they read,” thus the intent of the author is less important than the interpretation of the reader.

Ede and Lunsford find this argument problematic. The authors claim that Mitchell and Taylor underestimate the writer, and that “writing for the audience” can at its most extreme, become pandering to the audience. This concern is valid, especially for student writers who aim to write with the expectations of their instructor in mind. Audience Addressed seems to violate the Murry-and-Sommers style classroom, in which students are encouraged to write for themselves and discover meaning through writing. Writing for the audience works if the students understand audience as a part of genre, but often students simply associate audience with instructor, and their writing and revision hinges on the comments of their teachers, which makes post-process writing nearly impossible to envision.

The other side of the audience conversation is far less popular, according to Ede and Lunsford. The main scholars who advocate for Audience Invoked are Russell Long and David Ong. Ong, writing about narrative fiction rather than expository writing, maintains that “audience is fiction,” and emphasizes “the creative power of the adept writer who can both project and alter audiences” (83). Ong believes that the audience is complex and should not be a driving force of the writer’s work. He stresses the idea that audiences have the ability to interact with one another and even the speaker. However, this argument does not neatly transfer to writer. While audiences have the ability to form groups and discuss writing, it is less likely that the audience has the same opportunity to discuss with the writer themself.

When talking about audience, it is vital to point out a theory called the Hypodermic Needle theory; it states that all audiences are active audiences. Audiences take information and analyze meaning, rather than simply accepting the implied meaning from the media. This theory applies both to invoked and addressed audiences, and blurs the lines between the two schools of thought. Active audiences make it nearly impossible to imagine the audience and their interpretation of the texts. Because audiences are active, it is impossible to pander to them. The writer will never be able to imagine all the ways that an audience interprets a text. However, audiences, especially in narrative fiction, often try to separate themselves from the motivations of the writer and understand a work independently. In this sense, this theory leans more toward audience invoked: audience and writer are separate entities with separate interpretations of the work, just as writer and writing and separate entities. As Ede and Lunsford say, “meaning” is a balance between “the creativity of the writer and the creativity of the readers” (94).