M1.1 exercise: purpose and audience analysis
Purpose and Audience Analysis
This exercise asks you to apply what you learned in the textbook chapters by analyzing public documents for purpose and audience. You also will compare your analyses to identify how specific choices in content and design target different the works’ different goals.
Select either the website pair or video pair:
Website Pair
Genetically Modified Organisms
Video Pair
Fracking
Animation of Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking)
Animation of Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking) (Links to an external site.)
How does fracking work?
How does fracking work? – Mia Nacamulli (Links to an external site.)
Instructions
Pick one of these pairs of works about a common subject. Analyze each work and compare it to the other using the following guiding questions:
For each work, analyze purpose:
- What do you think the purpose is?
- What specific aspects or elements of the work suggest the purpose you have identified?
For each work, analyze audience:
- Identify primary/secondary audiences, as appropriate
- Identify all relevant audience characteristics and categories for each audience (i.e., knowledge level, personality, biases, etc.)
- Explain your reasons for characterizing the audience the way you do (i.e., What’s your evidence for your conclusions?).
Compare the two analyses:
- Are the purposes the same for each work? Different? How do you know?
- Are the audiences the same for each work? Different? How do you know?
Submit your answers in Word document.
