Who exactly are we communicating with?

By Graeme Ginsberg, Managing Editor, Research

Sue Dewhurst has posted a thought-provoking note on the Black Belt Dojo site asking what word should internal communication professionals use to refer to the people they communicate with. She points out that ‘audiences’ has tended recently to be criticised for being 'too passive'. Then there’s ‘stakeholders’ (perhaps, she suggests, too jargonistic and ambiguous) and ‘publics’ (bleuch!).

I have to say I keep coming back to 'audiences' - actually a fantastic, colourful word. I’d be tempted to ask those people who insist that 'audiences' is too passive, "What comatose audiences have you been part of recently?!?" Clearly not sitting in a cinema watching "Mamma Mia" (and that's not even live people we're screaming at). Or at a music gig with the audience going wild, shouting "Awesome!" or "Get off the stage, you're awful! You haven't played a proper gig since the Roundhouse in 1977, sell-outs!"

In fact, from ancient Greek amphitheatres to the Colosseum to music hall/vaudeville to football matches to comedy shows, I would say audiences have tended actually to be very vibrant, proactive performance influencers.

To me, 'audience' may not be an ideal word but it's great nevertheless: it implies a proactive force to be reckoned with and artists/sportspeople/politicians/communicators need to understand and collaborate with the audience or die on stage.

I’d be very interested to hear any thoughts about these terms and how we as communicators should refer to our ‘communicatees’ (how’s that for an awful word...).

Comments

[Wedge]

Just this morning I was thinking about the same thing. I was reflecting on how an audience might well be a non-group with little in common to hook in to.
http://kilobox.net/452/

I reckon we can never know our audience well enough because people are individuals. I'm moving away from the word 'constituents' too. I like the word 'people'.

[Emma Elias]

We use 'people' and our leaders talk to their 'colleagues'.