Knowing Your Audience
Running head: KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE
Knowing Your Audience
Name
BCOM/275
Teacher
Knowing Your Audience
On August 5, 2010, a small copper mine located in Chile suffered a cave-in which left 33 workers trapped underground. With workers being trapped 300 meters below ground with limited food, water, and oxygen, nobody knew for sure how long they would survive. After four days of being trapped, there was still no idea if any of the miners were even alive. Never before have so many workers survived being trapped underground for so long (Yang, 2010). Fortunately, in this case, tears turned to amazement as all 33 miners were located and rescued without any lives lost.
Nobody really ever expects to encounter a situation like this until it happens. What does the employer tell the families of those who are trapped in the mine? What does the employer tell its employees? These are questions that many people do not prepare themselves for. These types of communications must be handled delicately and with the audience in mind. What are some considerations to remember given the different roles and people in the audience? This paper will discuss some of the potential needs of the families of the miners in receiving a message about this incident. It will also discuss the potential needs of the company’s employees when receiving a message about this incident. Finally, this paper will talk about what actions a person must take before and after the message is delivered to ensure that it was received as intended.
As mentioned earlier, there are some considerations a person has to remember when communicating with the families of the victims and employees in this matter because of the different roles and people in the audience. If the audience is not taken into consideration when conveying a message, the communication could be lost, misunderstood, or incomplete. This could leave the audience
Knowing Your Audience
Name
BCOM/275
Teacher
Knowing Your Audience
On August 5, 2010, a small copper mine located in Chile suffered a cave-in which left 33 workers trapped underground. With workers being trapped 300 meters below ground with limited food, water, and oxygen, nobody knew for sure how long they would survive. After four days of being trapped, there was still no idea if any of the miners were even alive. Never before have so many workers survived being trapped underground for so long (Yang, 2010). Fortunately, in this case, tears turned to amazement as all 33 miners were located and rescued without any lives lost.
Nobody really ever expects to encounter a situation like this until it happens. What does the employer tell the families of those who are trapped in the mine? What does the employer tell its employees? These are questions that many people do not prepare themselves for. These types of communications must be handled delicately and with the audience in mind. What are some considerations to remember given the different roles and people in the audience? This paper will discuss some of the potential needs of the families of the miners in receiving a message about this incident. It will also discuss the potential needs of the company’s employees when receiving a message about this incident. Finally, this paper will talk about what actions a person must take before and after the message is delivered to ensure that it was received as intended.
As mentioned earlier, there are some considerations a person has to remember when communicating with the families of the victims and employees in this matter because of the different roles and people in the audience. If the audience is not taken into consideration when conveying a message, the communication could be lost, misunderstood, or incomplete. This could leave the audience
References: Weik, J. (2010). Over 30 workers trapped after chilean mine collapse. Manuscript submitted for publication, Library, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona