Moving away from audiences and embracing communities

Jay Rosen, the brilliant NYU journalism professor, has a must-read post titled "The people formerly known as the Audience"

He sums up his thesis here: "We graduate from wanting media when we want it, to wanting it without the filler, to wanting media to be way better than it is, to publishing and broadcasting ourselves when it meets a need or sounds like fun."

Well Jay, the demise of the audience is not confined to journalism, it is pervasive in all communications.

Why is the idea of audience fading?
Because it is a construct built upon the idea that one is able to exercise control in the constuction and distribution of communications. First off, changes in technology have may that nearly impossible today. Second, now that individuals have the capability to dictate the terms in which they access and consume information, they are less inclined to let others make those decisions for them.

In short, the myth of control is slowly unraveling. This represents a tremendous opportunity for public relations practitioners to serve as facilitators and aggregators, generating healthy conversations that engage communities. That is the skill we will need to develop in order to provide the best counsel to clients.

The post reminded my of a conversation I had (via posts) with Amy Grahan  a while back about the term "target audiences"

I am on a personal crusade to get the public relations industry to move away from the term target audience and instead think about communities of interest.

Last year, while unemployed post-grad-school, I left this reponse to a post by my now boss Richard Edelman:

Mr. Edelman,

This idea of moving beyond "talking points" is a lot similar to the points you made in your July 25 post talking to David Weinberger about changing the vocabulary used in PR. I think there is a big need to move beyond "talking points" and "messaging" and towards as you say, "enabling conversations to forge relationships."

However, I think it is just as important to rethink the idea of "target audiences" in PR. This is a term borrowed from the marketing/advertising world, and is designed for a one-way linear form of communication. PR should strive to "engage communities" and facilitate discussions.

After all:

- Audiences listen, communities talk
- Audiences are passive, communities take action
- Audiences follow set rules; communities create their own rules
- Audiences are bound by time and location; communities are fluid
- Audiences listen to opinion makers, communities cultivate opinions

In the end, much of this discussion is semantics, but it is indicative of a neccessary paradigm shift among PR professionals. In a world where information is available to anyone at anytime, the role of the PR professional shifts from content provider to facilitator, aggregator and distributor.

Keep up the great work on the blog, these are very important conversations to be having. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Treem

Other views:
Doc Searls weighs in
Tim Porter argues that audiences are still relevant, but needs to be re-evaluated