Audience Analysis
Kelly Wolfinger
Powell’s Books, www.polwells.com, is a site that buys and sells used books, identifies and discuses bestsellers, and hosts many author interviews, essays, and blogs. To better understand various author’s motives, world views, and aims, Dave, a Powell’s Books employee, invites them into conversation and encourages the authors to divulge to answers to many lingering questions their readers across the world may have. In this two-way, often informal interview setting, Dave is able to approach authors on multiple levels to engage them in conversations about the writing, home lives, both past and present, and inquire about their thoughts on current global and local issues that affect society and their writing. Dave proves his credibility to readers and authors alike as he is able to discuss and correlate different works that have overlapping themes and present alternate view points to the discussion his is participating in. His understanding of what he is relaying to his audience aid them in accepting his message and later further ponder the ideas he and the authors discuss.
Kelly Wolfinger
Powell’s Books, www.polwells.com, is a site that buys and sells used books, identifies and discuses bestsellers, and hosts many author interviews, essays, and blogs. To better understand various author’s motives, world views, and aims, Dave, a Powell’s Books employee, invites them into conversation and encourages the authors to divulge to answers to many lingering questions their readers across the world may have. In this two-way, often informal interview setting, Dave is able to approach authors on multiple levels to engage them in conversations about the writing, home lives, both past and present, and inquire about their thoughts on current global and local issues that affect society and their writing. Dave proves his credibility to readers and authors alike as he is able to discuss and correlate different works that have overlapping themes and present alternate view points to the discussion his is participating in. His understanding of what he is relaying to his audience aid them in accepting his message and later further ponder the ideas he and the authors discuss.
The tone of the interviews and level of formality are geared toward a multi educational and socioeconomic standing group of individuals. Although the interviewer and author assumes that the readers understand common literary terms and current events that can be related to the topics discussed. They also include multiple comparisons in their discussions, in doing so readers with limited experience or subject knowledge may not get what is being alluded to or inferred by these comparisons. The causal air present within the interviews gives readers the distinct impression that the overall messages will be easy to digest and promote differing thought and attitudes from people of vastly different backgrounds. In an interview with Jonathan Safran Foer, Dave uses common language to describe his ideas and information and pose his questions in an understandable way.
While Dave does enlist Foer’s opinion on a few topics, he does not seem to be excepting a lengthy rebuttal or controversial answer, but rather would like to see Foer further explain the puzzling questions for his readers and provide example and feedback from his perspective. For example, Dave, asks Foer of his opinion of the practice of adding multiple visual elements into writing, one in which Foer is known for. He is then able to express his reasoning for doing so and the importance in his mind for including them, especially in his appeals toward a younger generation who is accustomed to receiving multiple stimuli and messages concurrently.
The majority of the interview centers around the topics of reading and writing, Foer’s stories in particular, it does open itself up for various related topics such as the introduction and influence of other media, namely music, on writing and the changing ways individuals, especially those for a younger generation, seek out and intake the information around them.
There are minimal advertisement on Powell’s site, especially few scattered about though the available interviews. Although there are few, the advertisements that are present aid the readers in discovering a target audience as the vast majority of these ads are for subscriptions to other literary review and information sites or are sites that sell books for discounted prices.
Considering the overall organization of the site, present advertisements, and written dialogue, it seems that the target audience for this site it literate, educational seeking, individuals with at least a high school level of education or above. This type of site and it’s target audience differs greatly from those who seek their information on sites such as ESPN or Facebook. Although Dave writes an in informal manner, he expects his readers to have a background in what is being discussed, however, his writing is worth perusing if you would like to gain another opinion about various topics or gain information by reading about various authors in a more casual setting.
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