EE and The Media Gazette,

Knowing & Motivating 

Your Audience

• Reaching General or Mass Audiences
• How to Use It: The Three "Tions"
• The Influence Model

The adage “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” may be timeworn, but nonetheless it is a useful guidepost when developing a message to engage people.  The underlying concept is to understand your audience, regardless of cultural make-up, so that you can communicate with them in terms and content they can immediately comprehend and easily respond to.  The purpose for doing, or speaking, as the Romans do is so you and your message are accepted by your audience.

 

Public awareness and creating or changing public policy hinges on three things: (1) identifying your audience; (2) educating your audience; and (3) activating your audience into doing something you want them to do and understanding it is in their best interest to do so.  Therefore, by identifying, understanding and educating your audience, you are taking the first steps towards achieving your environmental education (EE) media goals. 

 

The following sections present several ways to understanding audiences, particularly general and mass audiences.  They provide a model for dividing audiences on the basis of influence and a discussion of ways to gain more information about the targeted audience.

 

Reaching General or Mass Audiences

 

For many reasons, people process the messages and information they receive in different ways.  For our purposes, we will use a simple model to help you design your message towards a general audience's needs by helping you understand the different ways people process messages and information.

 

The chart “Know Your Audience's Needs”  is an adaptation of a model developed by the Interpersonal Styles Inventory of International Learning. The chart arranges a general, mass audience into four personality “type” quadrants: Analytic, Directive, Amiable and Expressive.  In our model, each of these types processes information with distinctly different priorities.  However, because adjoining quadrant types influence each quadrant type every person tested from an audience may end up directly within a quadrant or along its boundary.

 

Analytics are the most data-oriented types.  They are assumed to generally evaluate or process messages by asking themselves questions like, “Is this credible?”  They are primarily interested in the “Just the facts, Ma’am.” Analytics assess your message by the credibility of its data.  Consequently, it is important to incorporate data messages to reach this segment of a general, mass audience.

 

Directives are generally the most goal-driven and action-focused types.  A Directive may want to know what the plan is, what needs to be done, how is the messenger proposing to achieve the plan and where does the messenger want to lead me.

 

The Amiables are people whose relationship with others is of primary concern and consideration.  When processing a message, an Amiable might ask, “Where’s the ‘we’ in this message?”  In this model, an Amiable is more likely to respond to messages that suggest a human element.  For example, “Together, we can create EE programs that help our families and communities.”

 

Expressives types are oriented towards being visual with heartfelt values, so messages with an emotional pull, and a sense of higher purpose, are particularly effective with them.  Like the Directives, Expressives tilt toward action and want to know the plan, “Why should I care about this?”

 

How To Use It: the Three “Tions”

 

The three “Tions” is a shorthand method of incorporating the interpretations and insights provided by this model.  Analytics and Directives are considered more intellectually oriented while Amiables and Expressives are more emotionally oriented.  Analytics and Amiables are information-focused types, while Directives and Expressives are more action focused.  A crude distillation brings us to the three “Tions”: Information, Emotion and Action.

 

Thus, when developing a message for a general, mass audience it is important to: (1) integrate reliable, easily understood data, (2) assume an appropriate emotional tone; and, (3) include a call or step to action in response to the message. 

 

The Influence Model

 

Another simple model, the Influence Model, is used to configure a general audience into two elements, a primary audience and a secondary audience.  The primary audience is the decision-maker and/or decision-making body and the secondary audience is the group(s) of people that you identify, educate and activate to influence the primary audience.

 

This model provides an easy method for dissecting the mass audience and dividing it into manageable components.  For example, your EE organization seeks to turn the groundswell of popular support for EE into tangible programs that K-12 students in your school district can participate in and reap valuable educational experiences.  In your case, the primary audience might be the county school board, if that is the decision-making body that designs the public school curriculum and allocates the funding and teachers for such programs.  The secondary audience could include the PTA, parents, students, faculty groups, and business groups that understand the critical thinking, problem solving and leadership skills provided by comprehensive and fully integrated EE programs.

 

In applying this model, your media committee would begin by ascertaining that your list of primary and secondary audiences is correct and complete.  Are there other groups to be found within each audience?  You might wish to consider the state legislature or governor another primary audience if they allocate educational funding.  Making a formal request to other secondary audiences, or special groups, may induce them to support your goal.

 

It is important to consider the media as a critical audience.  Think of the media as a community “megaphone” through which your message can reach your primary and secondary audiences.  Consequently, when crafting your message  and designing your media outreach efforts , consider the message attracting the media’s attention while still appealing to your other targeted audiences.  For example, your media committee  identifies your newspaper’s editorial board as an important secondary audience and does the necessary work to educate its editorial writer(s).  Thus, when the newspaper publishes a favorable editorial, urging the primary audience (governor, legislature or board of education) to establish and fund a strong EE program, the editorial board becomes a valuable ally in your educational drive

COPYRIGHT � 2000 SECC