Audience Analysis Memo
To: [Put Name]
From: [Put Name]
Date: 21/01/2021
Subject: Audience analysis of National Institute of Health (NIH) and WebMD
The audience is considered an important element in making communication more successful. This implies that the information conveyed during the communication process needs to address the targeted audience’s needs. Therefore, the audience’s expectations, knowledge level, and characteristics should be considered when choosing or creating the communication content, depth, and overall tone. Based on this notion, websites may present the same subject matter but are using different languages. The reason for this is that they target different audiences, as shown by NIH and WebMD.
Audience analysis of National Institute of Health (NIH) and WebMD
The national institute of health (NIH) in the United States public health agency must support and conduct medical research. Drawing on the institute’s purpose, it is clearly evident that it is designed for the medical field’s technical or specialized audience. This can be explicitly observed on its website where the highly technical language is used. In this sense, concepts are introduced without being discussed adequately. More so, to conduct any research, one needs to be familiar with jargon words associated with the subject of interest, for example, liquid biopsy, and methamphetamine. (“National Institutes Of Health (NIH)”) This is opposed to WebMD; a United State Corporation established to publish information and news related to human health and general well-being. The website is considered among the top online sites that offer healthcare information. Unlike the NIH website, WebMD uses non-technical and straightforward language, making the content more comprehensible. In this sense, jargon words are not common since simple words describe the major and subsections. For instance, drugs and supplements, living healthy, and family and pregnancy have been specified as the website’s main tabs. These words can be understood easily; besides the website has incorporated slideshows with colorful visuals, making it easier for everyone to read and understand. Therefore, the website’s primary audience is the general audience (COVID-19) et al.)
The NIH website is underpinned by the principle of supporting scientific research, which later translates them into quality health. Therefore, its primary audience, medical researchers, is highly educated, with substantial knowledge in research design, theoretical and empirical knowledge. In light of this background, we can conclude that the NIH’s primary audience is medical researchers. This is in contrast to the WebMD website, whose main objective is to create awareness on health and medical issues making the public its primary audience. The technical concepts are few and are clearly defined, based on the general audience’s needs and expectations. This group of audience is associated with a low level of education, particularly in the subject area.
Additionally, in terms of research, the WebMD differs from the NIH. The NIH medical researchers are open to cultural diversity since they increase their competence and obtain more vibrant research findings. “Therefore, NIH secondary audience is more conversant with the medical field, but their research capacity is limited. This is because research needs to be taught and practiced for someone to undertake it properly”. (“National Institutes Of Health (NIH)”) The composition of age in the two types of the audience is diverse, but most of them are younger in many cases. This is in contrast to the WebMD website’s secondary audience, which appears to be the healthcare practitioner. Since the website has established an intimate relationship with the general audience; medical professionals can gain insight and identify gaps in healthcare provision. This audience is more knowledgeable about the subject area being presented, which may appear to be boring to read articles aimed for the general audience. However, they may be attracted to the site for record-keeping, tracking patients’ feedback, or even determining current medical research trends. Moreover, the general audience website’s composition is less formal and has a long sentence structure compared to the specialized audience website.
In terms of persuasive strategies, the WebMD is different from NIH, the NIH website used mainly ethos and logos. Most importantly, the use of ethos revolves around competence and trustworthiness of the work and its authors. For one to gain the chance to work with NHIF, one should be highly competent and an expert in medical research. This is because the research problem needs to be adequately explored, and research evidence presented accordingly. For example, in one of its article about the effectiveness of experimental vaccines of coronavirus, they stated that ‘mRNA-1273 is 94.1% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19.’ This was critical to provide a platform to create trustworthiness. Throughout the article, information is presented logically, and credible sources are presented whenever they are needed. (“National Institutes Of Health (NIH) The case is different in the WebMD, whose ethos and egos are weak compared to NIH, pathos appears more evident in the former. WebMD’s information seems to create emotional appeal, for example, when someone thinks of developing allergic reactions for being vaccinated with COVID 19 vaccines. Biden’s strategy could demonstrate another example to Covid-19 vaccination where one might imagine its success leading to an America without the pandemic. WebMD content is grounded within appeals to needs such as safety, self-esteem and social as portrayed by its programs such as family and pregnancy and living healthy. Therefore, based on the background presented, it is of no doubt that the website may present the same subject but target a different audience, which results in the use of different persuasive strategies.
The NIH medical research is grounded within individuals’ safety, implying that turning scientific studies into evidence-based practices requires a strong logo. More specifically, the reasoning of the author is inevitable to make the persuasion process successful. In the NHIF website, information is presented and supported by relevant empirical evidence. A rational appeal accompanied the arguments in any research gap exploited. For instance, regarding the Covid-19 vaccines, they highlighted that NIH and Modern, Inc. develops the vaccine. The result indicated promising results, with no safety issues observed after an investigation study was conducted. The whole process of data collection and sampling procedure is discussed to show credibility to its audience. This is opposed to WebMD as it does not involve research but uses research from other platforms such as NIH to educate its audience more thoroughly. For example, in its article concerning the side effect of COVID vaccinations, it cited California’s state epidemiologist, Erica S. Pan, as their source of information. Instead of mentioning epidemiological processes contributing to the reaction, they referred to it as an allergic reaction. The use of Pan’s statement as the basis of the information was critical to avoid fallacies and somehow create a logos foundation.
References
“National Institutes Of Health (NIH)”. National Institutes Of Health (NIH), 2021, https://www.nih.gov.
(COVID-19), Coronavirus et al. “Webmd – Better Information. Better Health.”. Webmd, 2021, https://www.webmd.com/.