For most of my career, I thought I understood communication pretty well. But then, I worked on staff as a photographer who went out and captured stories.
Here is the basic process of that communication for most of my life:
First, I captured content, which was the Message, and I became the Messenger, using my camera to connect with the Audience.
From the first time I picked up the camera in the early 1980s until about 1995, the only way the Audience saw my work was in print. So, this is how I communicated with the Audience in newspapers, magazines, brochures, posters, and other printed material.
Now all the other messengers I worked with would have competition through the years and still do. So we entered our work [Message] into competitions judged by other [Messengers] and then received our accolades if we won awards.
I have won many different awards through the years.
A little side note is I stopped entering many competitions because the people I admired most [Messengers] were not entering those same competitions. However, I still had my work entered by the institutions I worked with and still won those awards.
I had it all wrong
The problem now with the industry is that jobs are disappearing from those traditional institutions like newspapers. The [Audience] has slowly been leaving. There are many reasons for this, but I believe one problem is as journalists, we may have been asking the five Ws:
- Who did that?
- What happened?
- Where did it take place?
- When did it take place?
- Why did that happen?
I was good at asking these questions of the subjects of the stories. I also added the sixth question that a seasoned journalist always added–How did it happen?
While working on my master’s degree in communication, I decided to do this at a Seminary. It was one of the best things I ever did. First, I had some of the same core classes the M. Div. students take. Then, later, when I met my wife, she could use some of my libraries when she did her M. Div.
My communications program was in the education school, and I had to take some basic education classes. So what would typically be a one-year master’s program was two years.
Now I learned in Seminary through preaching and education classes as you need to concentrate on the Audience. The education classes drove this home to me.
Communication experts didn’t pay as much attention to the Audience except to write at a particular grade level. That was all I ever heard about getting to know your Audience up until then.
In the youth education class, I learned that when working with high school students, you must understand their perspectives. For example, talking to theater students using sports metaphors is about as successful as expecting a toddler to read my dissertation paper.
We learned that for education to take place, the educator [Messenger] had to close the loop. So they gave tests that helped the teacher and the student know if the [Message] was received and understood.
Why should the audience care?
We have all been in school and asked the teacher why I needed to know this stuff. Maybe you were lucky like I have been and then had a teacher take the time to help me understand why knowing the material will help me in life.
We need to reverse the process if we want to be effective as communicators. First, we need to start just like teachers and understand our Audience. Then we find the stories that are most relevant to them.
Often teachers give tests on the first of the year to look at what skills the students lack that they must know before going to the next grade. So now they know what the audience needs.
NGO Example
Let’s say you are working for an NGO as a communicator. First, you must always start with who your Audience is, and secondly, why should they care?
I was helping coffee growers in Mexico communicate to their Audience potential buyers of coffee in the United States. But why should someone even consider buying coffee from them versus just buying Folgers coffee, for example?
I interviewed an American who had been buying and selling coffee in his coffee shop in California. I think he helped me answer the WHY? for the Audience. Listen and see if you agree.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4QNgR9t7Qo]
Where should you first start when telling a story? THE AUDIENCE