The hate group, the swing group, and the love group; these
are how modern companies classify customers’ opinions of their products.
Because it is hard for a company to switch someone from the hate group to the
love group, companies tend to have their advertising directed at the swing
group. We could consider the customers to be the company’s audience.
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| People are classified by their opinion into these 3 categories |
In reading the debate between Erasmus and Luther, it is easy
to see who the intended audience is. Erasmus is targeting the swing group, and
Luther is targeting the hate group (at least the head of the hate group).
Erasmus says that he is “addressing this to others”
(location 442). Thus he is not trying to directly dissuade Luther from his
cause, but to bring in as many others to his side as possible. He likely
recognizes there is no way to convince Luther, so he tries persuading others.
His use of plural pronouns such as “us” adds to this effect.
| Luther needed to be a strong leader to keep the protestant reformation strong |
Luther, on the other hand, directs his message directly to
Erasmus. He references Erasmus directly many times, with countless examples of
the pronoun you.
Based upon our modern ideas Luther should have tried
targeting the swing group rather than the hate group. But, considering the fact
that he was going against a global giant (the Catholic Church), and followers
would need to have a strong heart to continue following him, I think his
secondary audience was his love group. He knew that his followers would need
strength to face such terrible opposition, he knew that many of the people who
wanted to reform the Catholic Church had been tortured in extravagant ways, and
he knew that many of his followers knew that. Thus, he was trying to become a
symbol for the resistance, something that the people could look to. And the way
he achieved that is by attacking the hate group directly.
I think this was a really interesting way to connect Renaissance ideas to modern times when talking about advertising and targeting audiences. This really relates to what we were talking in class about decorum - the ability to relate things to your audience and know who you're talking to and how to make them understand your point. It seems like both Erasmus and Luther did this in different ways by targeting different parts of their audience for different reasons. That's what makes the debaters of these Renaissance times so great is their understanding of decorum in their use of speech. Good analysis.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your reference to modern business, I think the comparison in warranted and they tied together well.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Erasmus doesn't singly call out Luther because he knows he is the fly against the elephant. Luther doesn't need to necessarily need to persuade people to subscribe to his way of thought, because many already do.