An audience is an individual or a group of persons intended to receive the message, such as, men, women, youth, urban or rural people, students, farmers and so on. In good communication the audience aimed at is already identified by the communicator.
Success of the communication process depends on how audience responds to the message received. Audience can be identified according to occupation, profession, educational qualification, age, interest, need, economic status, social status and so on.
The homogeneity of the audience increases the chances of successful communication. The communicator must know the characteristics of the audience.
This helps in making impact of the message. Without the knowledge of audience and its view points, communicator cannot be sure of the success.
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Before making a plan of communication, the communicator must know the people’s needs as they see them and why they are in need of changed ways of thinking, feeling and doing.
It is expected from the audience that it will show an immediate action. It can be a mental or physical action. Sometimes audience receives and accepts the message but does not act in response to the message.
In the language of communication, until desired action results, programs of change do not achieve their most essential objectives. Usually the response of the audience is in the form of gaining knowledge as understanding, change in practice or habit, accepting or rejecting the idea and so son.
Thus, response or action resulting from a communication is a complicated phenomenon and should be considered with care and preciseness.