The Meanings of "Audience" by Douglas B. Park

         This article tried to convey the abstractness and importance of the concept of "Audience". I found myself repeatedly confused with the terms Douglas tried to define audience with, but also appreciated his explanations of how much the meaning of audience is misinterpreted these days, and how a wrong idea of audience can greatly hinder writing.
         It seemed sort of ironic how, as Douglas went through his explanation of what an audience is or is not, I noticed that his proposed audience seemed to be that of English composition teachers. He referred multiple times to the importance of teaching the concept of audience correctly, and how students need to understand how it is more of a metaphor than an actual group of people. But even though I didn't group myself in his intended audience, I realized as I made my way through the article that since I benefited in some way from what he wrote, and will take this new idea of audience and apply it to my future writings, that I actually am apart of his audience, as he defined it.
         If I were able to converse with the author of this article, I would commend him for taking on such a brave task as to explain the different meanings and misinterpretations of such a commonly misused idea. I would admit to him that the way he went about it did create certain elements of confusion for myself as a reader, but would admit that I know no other way to try and go about the task. I also enjoyed his multiple comments and references to "The Rhetorical Situation", which I wrote about in my previous blog. Its role in the Audience article helped clarify some of the points Park was making, and helped me relate audience to a rhetorical situation, and how an audience is significant in it.