Audience Analysis in Skilled Communication

About the Book

      Despite the amazing strides made in information technology, communication processes are predominantly initiated and managed by humans for humans. This underscores the idea that it is the target of the process that is the center of all communication activities. The process fundamentally involves seeking answers to the cardinal questions of what to communicate, how to communicate it, when to do so and why. Many books and manuals have attempted to address some of these questions but not much attention has been directed at a systematic analysis of audiences before, during and after communication encounters. Many books also do not address audience classification, universals of audiences, special types of audiences and levels of audience analysis.  This book addresses this and suggests that in order to do a good job in this part, it is necessary to view communication as skilled behavior, in view of this, the author has suggested some reflective activities at the and of each section. It is hoped that this activities generate more questions, debate and shit more attention to   audiences as centers of all communication.

       There is a preface to the book outlining the importance of analyzing audiences.  Chapter one looks at the generic aspects of audiences: categories of audiences, index of similarity /sameness, conception of effective communication, universal properties of audiences, special types of audiences and message classification.

           Chapter two addresses pertinent questions in audience analysis and chapter three looks at the levels of audience analysis. At the end of the book, the author has provided a list of terms as used in the text.

           The book is intended to meet the needs of diverse professionals in that all communicators have to deals with audiences on a day-to-day basis.  The section on special audiences recognizes the fact that although there are many common factors in audiences, there are some special audiences whose features may call upon communicators to look more into the circumstances.

About the Author

 A  career educator –has taught both at high school and university in kenya, East Africa

 -   Head/chair,Communication Skills Department, Kenyatta university, Kenya

    -Holds a bachelors in language and literature Kenyatta University,kenya

    -Masters in Applied linguistics(University of Birmigham,United Kingdom

    -Doctorate in Communication and Education (State University of New York)