Using Schema for Analyzing Audiences: Complexity and Simplicity Balance

Purpose: This paper builds on a primary study (Sentell, 2016) that demonstrated how information can be presented more memorably through engaging an audience's collective (self)schema. It analyzes real-world examples of these strategies and theorizes implications for audience analysis. Method: An Uncle Sam poster promoting handwashing in a VA hospital and JFK's "man on the moon" speech are analyzed as notable examples of memorable communication. Each example illustrates (self)schema's influence on attention and recall as well as the strategies of engaging (self)schema: tapping the familiar, bridging to the unfamiliar, conveying practical value, and arousing emotions. I discuss how (self) schema can be used as a framework for analyzing audiences and developing personas. Results: Using (self)schema as a framework for audience analysis is an intuitive, holistic alternative to more time- and resource-intensive methods. It can balance the competing needs for complex, multidimensional representations of audience and limited, simple distillations of those representations that can be useful during composing. Analyzing an audience's (self)schema can clearly organize a variety of dimensions and generate insights into likely emotional predispositions. Understanding the audience's (self) schema facilitates using familiarity, unfamiliarity, practical value, and emotions to enhance information's memorableness. Conclusion: Technical communicators can use the concept of (self)schema to analyze audiences, craft personas, and engage the audience's (self)schema to make information more memorable, persuasive, and effective.