Q Topic 1: Analyzing Your Audience By the end of this week you must submit your formal Senior Capstone Project proposal to your instructor. In it, you must identify and present an analysis of the audience for your project. A thorough understanding of your audience requires research and careful thought, but the results will help focus and direct the work you do on your project. This discussion topic is designed to help you prepare your audience analysis for your project proposal. All of your projects will have a primary audience; many of them will have a secondary audience and possibly even a tertiary audience. A primary audience is one composed of the main readers or users of your document/project. Secondary or tertiary audiences may read or experience your project in some way, but they are not your main readers and they will probably not influence your research in quite the same way as your primary audience. For the research report projects, your primary audience will be other research scholars in the communications studies discipline. For the business reports, your primary audience will be decision makers or people who will somehow act on what you produce. The audience for media kits can be journalists or potential clients, with consumers, customers, or community members often secondary audiences. The audience for a speech will depend on its purpose and the venue at which it is given. You will find resources to help you analyze the audience for your project in this classroom under Course Resources > Senior Capstone Project Toolkit > Additional Senior Capstone Project Resources. For this discussion topic, please answer the three questions below in as much detail as you can. Remember, when you're working on a discussion question in this class, you are working on the first draft of material for use in one of your projects in this class; in this case, your senior capstone project. Post your answers by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday; comment substantively on the initial responses posted by at least two of your classmates by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday. Continue your conversations through the end of the course week. Here are the questions: 1. Identity: Who is your audience? Identify the main readers or users of your senior project in as much detail as you can. Do your research! Include demographic information. What do they already know about this topic? How do they already feel about this topic? If you're writing a business proposal, this resource can help you determine its primary, secondary, and tertiary readers. If you're writing a speech, this resource may help you to analyze both your target speaker and his or her audience. If you're creating a media kit, this resource can help you analyze the prospective audience for the product, service, or other information in the kit and the media who serve that audience. These questions or theAudience as Boss worksheet also can be useful for these endeavors. 2. Breadth and depth: What questions will your audience need answered in your research? Make a list of the questions and concerns that your audience will have about your topic. This may include some definitional questions (e.g. What is X?) as well as other concerns (e.g. How will these pesticides affect a woman’s health?) 3. Strategy: What sorts of persuasive strategies may be effective with this audience? Describe how knowing who your audience is may affect your own choices of persuasive strategies. For example, if most of your readers are ignorant about your topic, you will have to spend a lot of time explaining things to them. If you think that most of your readers will be suspicious or wary of your position, you will have to explain it to them in ways that are not threatening. If there are political concerns that will direct your research, you can talk about that here. What sort of evidence will be most convincing to this audience? (e.g. facts and statistics, expert testimony, etc). You may not have a detailed idea about your strategic approach to the project, but this is the place to begin to think about strategy and audience needs. Again, please make sure to post your initial response to this prompt by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. Please change the title of your post to include your name and your project's proposed topic. Then, respond to the initial posts of at least two other students by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday. Continue your conversations through the end of the course week.