Who's Your Audience?

This chapter builds on what readers have learned about behavioral goals and objectives and focuses on another central ingredient to strategic communication: the audience. Giving special attention to the topic of audience in relation to science communication is especially important because scientists traditionally have unsophisticated ways of thinking about audiences for their communication efforts. Using survey data, this first section of the chapter provides a broad summary of how Americans generally perceive science and scientists. The second section of this chapter teaches readers audience analysis, a widely used process that helps communicators uncover deeper insights about their audiences that can be used to enhance their communication efforts.