"Embracing Digital Literacies: A Study of First-Year Students’ Digital Compositions"

Picturing an Audience

Several students felt they had a strong understanding of the audiences they address online. Ethan, a chemistry major who uses free time to answer chemistry questions on Yahoo Answers, spoke in depth about how he empathizes with and relates to his audience. Ethan feels his understanding of audience has sharpened since beginning college. Because he struggled as a sophomore in high school chemistry, Ethan feels he can “actually relate to these people” on Yahoo Answers:

Some of these people want to become doctors, pharmacists so they want to have a good understanding when it comes to the sciences…And I can empathize with these people and I could actually understand what they are going through. So in terms of audience I look at myself and I see me in them…I was once where they were right now asking questions where [now] I may think, oh this is a simple question, but wouldn’t three years ago.

Ethan’s writings reflect his efforts to imagine and relate to his audience. He spends several hours writing answers to questions posed by other users on the forum. His writings depict a friendly and enthusiastic tone as he responds to questions. In one conversation, Ethan explained to a questioner:

Electrons balance out the positive charge by giving a negative charge (it is more complicated than this, but for this purpose, we will consider this). REMEMBER, all atoms are neutral. Since the amount of positive and negative charges cancel out each other…the amount of electrons in an atom equal the amount of protons. 

In response to Ethan’s lengthy answer, the questioner replied: “[You’re] legitimately my hero right now…I have so much stuff going on in my life right now. It’s hard to focus on school...But thank you soooooo much.” Based on his conversations through Yahoo, Ethan appears to have a good idea of the values of this community. While some questioners are looking for quick answers, the feedback from his online peers suggests that many are appreciative of the lengths Ethan goes not only to answer, but to explain the answer in detail. Ethan places great value on the feedback he receives and his interactions within this online community. Pointing out a positive response from one of his questioners, Ethan remarked to me that: “this one made me feel all special inside.” To continue to receive these kinds of positive reinforcements of his writing, Ethan must be closely attuned to the needs of his fellow Yahoo forum users. Assuming characteristics of his addressed audience allows Ethan to enter into dialogue with questioners on Yahoo and appropriately meet the needs of this discourse community.

Ava similarly feels that she has a handle on who her audience is and what they expect. As an avid user of social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, she feels connected to her audience because they are primarily family and friends. Ava is a devoted Dodgers fan, and whenever she celebrates Dodger victories through online writings, she is acutely aware of how her audience may receive these writings. In order to keep things as friendly as possible, she tries to make her Facebook and Instagram posts positive and upbeat instead of jeering at other teams’ losses. One Instagram caption reads: “Nothing better than spending my 19^th birthday at the Dodgers game with the ones who mean the most to me! All 6 of us are actually together for once! #family #lovethem #gododgers.” Her playful banter about sports portrays a cheerful, competitive personality while entertainingly engaging an online audience. Like Ethan, Ava consciously considers the choices she makes while writing online and how these discursive strategies may affect her audience. She explained,

I’d say in general, I do think about my audience because I know … especially on my sports posts I have a whole bunch of family who are Giants fans and I’m the biggest Dodger fan ever so I always talk about the Dodgers … and like I know all the Giants fans will see it and comment on it … I’m like not … really rude about it like some people are.

Because her audience’s values are clear to her, Ava tempers her writing to not appear “rude,” but to set a positive tone that cues readers to respond in kind. Like Ethan, Ava’s awareness of discourse community values contributes to the choices she makes as a writer.