Knowing Your Audience

Knowing Your Audience

Adam Green

BCOM/275

December 13, 2011

Julia Morgan

When a company is dealing with a disaster, they must fully understand their audience to release the information carefully to the public covering everyone’s needs. An excellent example of this would be the 2010 mining disaster in northern Chile. On August 5, 2010 the San Jose mine, owned by Minera San Esteban Primera, suffered a cave-in trapping 33 mine workers (Weik, 2010). After any disaster, especially one of this magnitude, it is the company’s responsibility to promptly address anyone with a connection to the mine, company, or workers. Their messages to the public must vary while addressing the different group’s needs. Family members of the trapped and employees of the company will both need to receive different messages for their specific needs and concerns. Careful planning before and after the message’s release is vital for the understanding of the intended message while keeping everyone at ease. Without strategizing to ensure appropriate messages are constructed, the mining company will become vulnerable for attack and an uprising from loved ones and friends of the trapped miners.

Knowing the intended audience is important with any type of communication but even more so while delivering a message about a disaster involving the audience’s friends and loved ones. Understanding this is crucial for the company, to ensure a clear and complete delivery while taking into consideration the diversity, barriers, and reactions of the audience. The company’s audience is much larger than just one individual; therefore, there will be a mixture of different backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs that the company must acknowledge when addressing the different audiences. The families and employees involved in this terrible accident may become overwhelmed with emotions and stress, and the information they receive soon after the incident should be...