Response to Ong

Ong's essay, "The Writer's Audience is Always Fiction," takes a look at the differences among the audiences of written and verbal communication. For Ong, the concept of audience is much more a part of vocal communication as opposed to written. The speaker is more likely to know who his audience is and can therefore adapt his speech accordingly. In written communication, Ong says that the writer has no such advantage. Only to a certain degree can the writer predict his audience. He cannot know the mood of the audience, the climate in which is work his read, or a multitude of other things that might affect the meaning of his words. As a speaker, individuals have instantaneous feedback and can adjust the speech accordingly. The feedback for writers takes much longer and often we cannot revise our words until it is too late---the audiene has already walked away with one meaning.

Ong felt the best way to combat this was for the writer to imagine the different roles his audience might be taking on in regard to the writing. Is the audience made up of academics, students, or the general public and how might the message be adjusted accordingly so that eache member of the audience gleans some small idea of the content the author is trying to pass along? While Ong concentrates mostly on the area of classical literature, in the last paragraphs of his article, he states that this argument applies to all genres of writing. He goes so far to suggest that history and even our personal communication is "fictionalized" to a degree since two writers rarely tell the same tale.