The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction

Abstract

Whereas the spoken word is part of present actuality, the written word normally is not. The writer, in isolation, constructs a role for his “audience” to play, and readers fictionalize themselves to correspond to the author's projection. The way readers fictionalize themselves shifts throughout literary history: Chaucer, Lyly, Nashe, Hemingway, and others furnish cases in point. All writing, from scientific monograph to history, epistolary correspondence, and diary writing, fictionalizes its readers. In oral performance, too, some fictionalizing of audience occurs, but in the live interaction between narrator and audience there is an existential relationship as well: the oral narrator modifies his story in accord with the real—not imagined—fatigue, enthusiasm, or other reactions of his listeners. Fictionalizing of audiences correlates with the use of masks or personae marking human communication generally, even with oneself. Lovers try to strip off all masks, and oral communication in a context of love can reduce masks to a minimum. In written communication and, a fortiori, print the masks are less removable.

Knock, Knock. Who's There? The Imagined Audience

“…The less an actual audience is visible or known, the more individuals become dependent on their imagination. Therefore, people are typically more reliant on the imagined audience during mediated communication, such as letter and email writing or talking on the phone, than in face-to-face settings (Ong, 1975), because of the reduced verbal and nonverbal cues of audience members (Walther, 1996).…”

“…If the actual audience typically plays the most influential role on behavior, what happens when the audience is unknown or difficult to determine, such as during mediated communication? People tend to rely on whatever limited cues may be ''given off'' by the audience (e.g., tone of voice) (Goffman, 1959), as well as their envisioning of the audience (Ong, 1975). Enter the imagined audience.…”

Asian Brands and the Shaping of a Transnational Imagined Community

“…By subjectivity, we mean the position or role that marketers imagine for consumers as they fictionalize their audience (Kover 1995;Ong 1975). Ideas about consumers, such as the idea of children as consumers (Cook 2004), have been shown to structure consumer culture (Bauman 2000;Slater 1997).…”

Aesop’s Trumpeter, Aristotle’s Orator, and the Technical Communicator

“…As Ong (1975) writes, although rhetoric originally dealt with oral communication, "it has gradually extended to include writing more and more" and is even a principle concern of writing today (9). Although contemporary rhetoric certainly falls within the Aristotelian paradigm, the rhetoric of technical communication differs from what Aristotle originally suggests.…”