"The Writers Audience is Always a Fiction" with Case Studies

After studying Walter J. Ong in many of my classes I find it interesting to know that before becoming a literature professor he was a Jesuit priest. He was very much used to hearing the word of God read out to him, as well as by reading the word himself. In his article “The Writer’s Audience is Always Fiction” he lays out some important frameworks about his main areas of focus as a literary philosopher on the transition of our culture moving from one that is oral to one that is predominantly literary.

 One of the frameworks given to us is that writers project audiences for their work by imagining the presumptive audiences of other pieces of writing, the best example I can think of that aids in the understanding of this framework is a fundraising statement. Most people when the fundraise for an event in current years will compose a text that almost always follows the same pattern. The current author did not just change the formatting of the given text because they thought of it by themselves, but instead will think of the times that they received a request for money and how it made them feel. That author will then compose their own while drawing off the work of the imagined audiences before them, and so on. This does not mean that every text created for fundraising will be identical, but it does mean that “each new role that readers are made to assume is related to previous rolls,” (12).

The second framework given to us is where readers seem willing to be fictionalized—they seem willing to be the audience projected by the writer, so long as that projection is familiar or acceptable to them. When an author is creating their work it is not possible for that author to see the audience that they are writing to and gauge the response that they are getting from the audience like they would be able to if the author was speaking to the audience. In this case the author must set up their work in a way that transforms the audience into a fictional land that makes them more prone to accepting what is written. While reading a piece you can either agree with what is said or completely reject it. If the author does a good job of setting up the believability of the work, then the audience will have no issue with being fictionalized. In some cases, the audience a very prone to being fictionalized. For instance, if the story begins with “Once upon a time” or “In a galaxy far far away” the audience is willing to be mentally placed into that fictional setting and gauge the story being told. This framework relates closely with the second case study for me. The clips shown were all of movies which have both a written aspect (the script) and the oral aspect (the showing of the movie). The clip of the movie “Enchanted” casted the idea of a fairy tale musical being represented in every day life in New York. The main male character being the audience to our female protagonist rejected the idea of her signing in the park and wanted to quickly move away while not allowing himself to be cast in this musical idea at first, but once all the other ‘audience’ members of the park quickly accepted what was going on and then joined in themselves it showed the active movement from observer to engagement, which is what the author wants to happen. Ong says reading is an individual task in which the reader (audience) can accept the words and be engaged (other members in the park scene) or can passively reject and read the message (male character). If they do choose to be  engaged then they are in fact allowing themselves to be fictionalized as an audience.

The other important framework that goes well with one of the case study’s is the talk of Hemingway. Ong says on page 13 that the style that Hemingway creates in his works is called the “you-and-me” style, and is used to make the reader (fictionalized audience) play a bigger roll than just passive member. The you-and-me effect pretty much uses words with definitive articles in order to make the reader feel as if they and Hemingway are old friends recalling a time they had together. For example, “She stood by the lake and watched the breeze blow leaves across the surface of the water.” The definitive article ‘the’ makes the reader believe that they already know which lake she is standing by, and allow themselves to be fictionalized as by knowing this non-specified lake. This framework is seen clearly in the use of the “The Girl Effect” advertisements. These ads are set up to hit the audience emotionally while also gauging their temperate of involvement around these ideas. The campaign uses the definite article “the” in reference to a girl even though the campaign is aiding a group of girls. This allows the audience to fictionalize themselves one girl and be more willing to accept the message since they feel like they already know the girl they are trying to help. It is similar to the campaign that sends a picture of the kid you’re sponsoring/aiding but instead allows the audience to engage in the cause while picturing whomever they like.

The complications for Ong an audience strive from his belief that we are shifting from the oral tradition of addressing an audience to the written audience. Ong believes that these two types of audiences shouldn’t be seen as the same, or tested in the same category. “The contrast between hearing and reading) can be caught if we imagine a speaker addressing an audience equipped with texts. At one point, the speaker asks the members of the audience all to read silently a paragraph out of the text. The audience immediately fragments. It is no longer a unit. Each individual retires into his own microcosm. When the readers look up again, the speaker has to gather them into a collectivity once more,” (11). An oral audience is one that is a group while a literate audience is individualistic.