Analyzing My Audience

• What are their beliefs and assumptions?

My audience consists of students entering my field of economics. If they are passionate about economics, they will know that it does not always have to do with money. Economics can be defined as weighing the net benefits vs. net negative benefits in a given scenario. If they are citizens of the U.S., they will believe that marijuana is illegal and the U.S. government spends billions of dollars fighting a losing war on drugs.

• What kind of language is appropriate for them?

Students in the business sector are taught to avoid lengthy sentences and unnecessary information that is not crucial to the writing task at hand. Short, informative sentences that get straight to the point are the kind of language business students use, in order to appeal to a wide variety of clients, customers and individuals.

• What are their sociopolitical and economic backgrounds?

This is a difficult question to answer for my field. As my audience is students in my field, that is their social background. However, any individual from any political or economic background can become successful in a business career with hard work and determination.

• What position might they take on this issue?

While some students may agree that marijuana should be illegal, as that was what they were taught growing up, I truly believe that many students of this generation would take the pro-legalization side. This generation has a tendency to advocate for the legalization of marijuana, as in just the past few years, it has started becoming legal in certain states, something that older generations did not experience.

• What will they want to know?

Students in the economics field would want to see the net benefits of legalizing marijuana laid out, as well as the net negative benefits (pros and cons.) They will want to know all the facts, and then make a decision based off if they believe the benefits outweigh the cons, or vice versa.

• In General, how can they best be persuaded?

If the author can effectively display and state the information without showing bias to one side and slandering the other, that is the first step. The next step is the author needs to be able to show that the net benefits outweigh the net negative benefits, which to an economist, leads to a profitable or valuable decision, and that is what they want to see.

Pixabay. Students Multicultural, April, 2015, CC0 Public Domain