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What is Audience? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Audience Definition

An audience (AW-dee-ins) is a group of people who have gathered to listen to or witness a public event such as a play, speech, or concert. To define audience in literature, it is who the author writes their piece for—in other words, the reader.

Some general examples of an audience in literature would be children, young adults, or adults. For example, The Boxcar Children series was written for an audience of children, The Hunger Games series was written for young adults, and the Broken Earth series was written for adults.

The word audience comes from the Latin word audire, which means “to hear.” It is also related to the Latin audientia, the act of hearing.

Audience Synonyms & Antonyms

Audience synonyms include:

  • spectators
  • readers
  • listeners
  • viewers
  • patrons
  • assembly
  • crowd
  • gathering
  • public

Audience antonyms include:

Types of Audience

Audience can be categorized by many factors, including age, social class, and gender. However, it can also be broken down into these five groups: experts, laypeople, managers, technicians, and hybrids.

Experts

This group of audience members has a lot of knowledge about the subject matter, so they don’t need the basics explained to them. Expert audience members can be doctors or academics, or it can mean someone who has read countless romance novels and is therefore considered an expert of the genre‘s elements and standards.

The risk in writing for this audience is that a work may go over the heads of non-expert readers. However, the experts will appreciate the author getting to the point right away. An example would be a scientific journal or a novel about a niche topic.

Laypeople

This audience is considered the beginners group. They know little or nothing about the subject matter, so the basics need to be clearly laid out. A good writer for this audience will try to anticipate any questions and answer them in the text. Expository articles on a home décor style or textbooks are good examples for this audience.

Managers

Writing for an audience that’s in a higher position than the author needs careful consideration. The manager group is anyone who makes decisions over the author—a president or CEO of a company, for example. It’s crucial to ensure that the proper tone is used and the proper knowledge is demonstrated so the text is seen as a valid source. An example of this work might be a work presentation or a company-wide email.

Technicians

This technical-minded audience wants clear details and guidelines for their subject. How-to articles are a great example of a text this audience would want to read. Authors writing for this group will need to be aware of their writing structure, ensuring they omit surprise details and keep everything logical.

Hybrids

This audience is a combination of groups. It can be experts and managers who both know a lot about the subject and have decision-making power. The text must demonstrate that the author knows what they’re writing about because the audience is already skeptical of the text’s merit.

To successfully write for this audience, the author must decide who is their primary audience and who is secondary. This way, their tone can be geared toward the primary audience, and the secondary audience can tag along if interested. An example of a hybrid audience could be a persuasive article.

Audience and Genre

All genres of novels―and books in general―are geared toward a specific audience segment. For example, middle-aged housewives are known for reading romance novels, young men are often champions of science fiction, and intelligent problem solvers love mystery novels.

However, most novels can have a broader audience interested in its message. C.S. Lewis said it best: “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” Though a novel is written for a younger audience, a good author will find a way to ensure readers of all ages can relate to the narrative. The same can be said for romance novels that attract males and or young adults who enjoy a good mystery novel. The most successful books often appeal to a universal audience.

Audience Theory

Audience theory has evolved over the years with input from different influencers, but it was initially proposed that an audience is made up of rhetorical situations that a piece of writing establishes. In other words, audiences are passive members of a text and will believe and absorb any information they read.

Later, audience became more about targeting a real and specific group through the written word. It was discovered that audiences are actively engaged in what they’re reading and influence pieces of writing while they’re being written. This means an author cannot assume that whatever they’re writing has a fixed meaning that will be interpreted equally by every person. Instead, they must accept that each audience member who is actively engaged in the text will receive it differently. In other words, audience participation is inherent to literature, including its creation. This applies to spectators outside of literature, as well, such as in the case of a television audience.

The Function of Audience

Audience plays a big role in how a writer approaches their writing. The writer can change their voice, tone, and sentence structure to match their target audience. For example, children’s books often have simple sentence structures and use positive language to engage the young audience, whereas a book written for an adult can use complex language with a more intricate subject matter.

The writer also needs to know how familiar the wider audience is with their subject so they can ascertain what the audience needs to hear. This will determine the details included in their writing as well as how delicately they approach the subject. For example, George Orwell chose to write Animal Farm as an allegory because he knew his intended audience wouldn’t accept his message as readily if he spoke openly about the Russian Revolution. So, he disguised the subject with personified animals.

In verse, the poetry audience should be those who can identify and understand the meaning behind the poem. The poet must therefore write their poem in a way that appeals to this specific segment. On the stage, on the other hand, the theater audience is meant to react appropriately to what they see and feel. This emotion, whether it’s laughter, cheering, or booing, fuels the actors and helps motivate them to perform.

Examples of Audience in Literature

1. William Shakespeare, King Lear

Shakespeare‘s plays were intended for an adult audience of any social status, whether rich, middle class, or poor. Anyone could attend his plays and get something out of it, as the themes were universal to all levels of society.

King Lear’s themes of revenge, selfishness, love, and misunderstanding are common for all people. When King Lear believes his sycophantic older daughters instead of Cordelia, the daughter who truly loved him, it’s a fault many in life will relate to. And when Edmund lies and deceives his brother and father to claim the throne, that selfishness is also a trait that audiences, no matter their class, will appreciate.

2. Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This book was written for a young adult audience, as it follows the coming-of-age story of a freshman in high school. Chbosky uses teenage vernacular to make his characters believable, and he delves into traumatic themes such as sexual abuse and living a passive life. The intended young adult audience relates to the story, but adults can also find inspiration in Chbosky’s ideas that we’re not alone and we all deserve love.

3. Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a humorous book that defends proper use of punctuation using witty examples and scenarios. Truss argues that commas and semicolons are necessary and can greatly alter a written message if used incorrectly. Truss provides examples where incorrect uses of grammar result in a funny or misunderstood message that only someone with prior understanding of punctuation will appreciate. Therefore, this book was intended for an expert audience.

Further Resources on Audience

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Helping Writers Become authors touches on the challenges of writing for a modern audience.