The Networked Audience: A Multidimensional Framework

• In Event: The Critical Role of Audience in Digital Writing

Abstract

In a digitally connected age, “networked audiences” (Marwick & boyd, 2011, p. 129) now play a prominent role in writing, not just as writers imagine potential audiences for their writing but in the participatory nature of audiences. Networked audiences answer back to writers, and writing in online spaces is influenced by the fact that at any time, audiences may respond, not always in ways that are sanctioned, helpful, or predictable. Now when writers compose online, even if no one responds, the writing is shaped by the very possibility of response – the texts people create anticipate interactive audiences. Given that these “engaged audiences” (Lunsford & Ede, 2009) shape the writing process in profound way, this presentation argues that scholars need a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of audience for a digital age (see Magnifico, 2010 on this argument).

Author

• Amy Stornaiuolo, University of Pennsylvania