The Evolution of the Reader

In Ong's "The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction" and in Barthes' "The Death of the Author" both writers emphasize the importance of the reader/audience. In many ways I feel that recognizing and analyzing the role of the reader is a concept that has developed gradually. Barthes, for example, would consider the reader and the language itself in a work of writing as being just as powerful agents as the actual author. Additionally, one of Ong's best examples of an author who has a deep connection with the reader is Ernest Hemingway (a 20th century writer). In all of these instances I find a common denominator, and that is TIME. Ong, Barthes, and Foucalt all transfer power from the author to the reader in their works that are published after the 1960's.

This may be a stretch, but is it possible that there is a link between our postmodernist thinking and beginning to seriously consider the reader as an agent? Kenneth Burke in his personal philosophy, definition of man, and "Literature as Equipment for Living" stresses the significance of man being symbol creating animals. We seek to organize, analyze, and consider all angles. Is our tendency to reverse the convention of the author having the power and thereby question things we thought to always have held true just a characteristic of a postmodernist school of thought? Although the reader has always been present, it is possible that seeing them as agents has come with an increase in their literacy and education.

If we think back to a time where an oral culture was dominant and few men could read or write, we wouldn't consider the audience as being very powerful. We may not consider them agents at all because they would simply learn from storytellers and regurgitate that knowledge. I believe that readers have gained agency with time, education, and experience. Writers have always had to fictionalize their audience and create with them in mind but I also believe that readers have gained power over time. I think especially in the 21st century, authors can expect a lot more from their audience than they ever could before. Why? Humans have gradually become more knowledgable and that knowledge is power. There was a time when few men could read. Now man can read, write, listen to the radio, watch television, tweet, stream, post, create, etc.

This being said, it becomes more difficult for the writer to fictionalize his audience just as it becomes more difficult for the reader to suspend disbelief and fictionalize themselves. People have become more skeptical with time and I think this makes it easier for the reader to see through the "masks" the author wears. On the other hand, I am glad that the reader has become powerful enough where we can analyze them and the author will consider their presence more.

So I have come so far and still I find flaws in my argument and have to question whether or not the reader has always had so much power or we have recently started to give it to them. Have authors truly always considered their audiences or has the audience's increase in participation/education increased this trend?

I definitely know that the author has always had to fictionalize his audience. This is obvious in Ong's example about writing in a diary or composing a letter. However, have authors gradually found themselves composing for a more active audience?

In the 21st century, a lot more current than anything we have read so far, how does the reader's agency directly affect how the author fictionalizes his audience? The author knows readers will like, share, comment, retweet, and possibly even remediate their work. How do these factors further complicate our already complicated understanding of author/reader relationships?