In the article “The Writer’s Audience is always a Fiction,” Walter Ong discusses the nuances entangled with
the use of the word “audiences” used by writers, readers, and scholars to
discuss the readership (“there is no collective noun for readers”) of a text
(11). Professor Graban offered us some guiding questions to better understand the article, and I decided to explore how Ong’s conceptualization of the “audience” might be even more complicated to interpret in a modern context.He describes the difficulty a writer has in choosing an audience when
writing a novel, ”For the speaker, the audience is in front of him. For the
writer, the audience is simply further away, in time or space or both” (10).
To understand the complexities, one
must understand a little bit of history. In the article, Ong explores how
“rhetoric originally concerned oral communication, as indicated by its name,
which comes from the Greek word for public speaking” (9). The shift over time
of oral rhetoric to written rhetoric has interestingly resisted to change the
use of “audience,” despite the lack of a physical audience that the novelist
writes to. There are readers who read the articles and interpret them, but an
audience with an immediate response to what is being spoken, there is not. Thus,
Ong introduces the idea of fictionalizing the audience. Creating an audience
for the writer to write to and for the reader to become. This is best explored
through Hemingway, “The reader –every reader- is being cast in the role of a
close companion of the writer. This is the game he must play here with
Hemingway, not always exclusively or totally, but generally, to a greater or
lesser extent” (13). Hemingway fictionalizes his audience to BE his close
companion and every reader becomes one.
In regards to the modern modes of communication, specifically social media, Ong may have found it difficult to understand how to fictionalize the audience, when the audience is at once both very personal/private and very public. Ong may have compared it to a public diary, a place where the diarist addresses oneself and is “even more encased in fictions” (20). While using social media, a person on some level may engage in the same questions Ong posed about the diarist, ”To what self is he talking? To the self he imagines he is? Or would like to be? Or really thinks he is? Or thinks other people think he is? To himself as he is now?” (20).
Social Media, specifically platforms like twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, are places for people to curate public and private personas. People have specific audiences they address, their “Facebook friends” and their “twitter followers.” But oftentimes, these spaces are a lot less private and are often more accessible to whomever understands how to use Google as a search engine. Privacy issues aside, how people choose to fictionalize their social media “audience” can truly alter how they curate their personal brand. Those who fictionalize their “audience” to be themselves, like the diarist, will offer different types of statuses, tweets, messages, etc., than the person who fictionalizes their “audience” as their “close companion.” The complexities for Ong may lie in the lack of a consistent use for social media. He would have to define each platform, understand the nuances of internet privacy, and (if he dares) tackle an understanding for those who comment publicly on articles.
- Joelle Garcia
This is an interesting way of looking at this text. With Ong's discussion on writers like Hemingway and Austen I was a bit caught up with looking at this in the realm of literature more so than anything else. I think Ong may have grappled with the idea that since we view social media accounts like Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook as curated versions of ourselves, that perhaps the audience we fictionalize is a reflection of oneself. Or, perhaps Ong may have urged the social media poster to fictionalize an audience for each individual post, as each post is its own separate text, and each text deserves a unique audience.
ReplyDeleteBarthes and Foucault, however, would have an even more difficult time with social media since, for them, the author must die, and in social media, the author him/herself is very, very much alive.
I, too, looked at Ong’s article and was drawn to discussion of the audience. The quote, “For the speaker, the audience is in front of him. For the writer, the audience is simply further away, in time or space or both,” is extremely thought-provoking because it can technically be applied to things other than simply writing or reading. Your connection to social media and today’s world is fascinating, because you bring up the fact that these vehicles for interaction are personal and private at the same time – for example, how you can make your Facebook profile public to most of the world, but limit access to your posts and pictures to just your friends. I also like how you state that those who fictionalize their audience as a collective mass of people (rather than “close companions”) will have a different variety of posts, tweets, etc. Very interesting comparisons and take on this!
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