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Knowing the Audience

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Knowing Your Audience Paper and Communication Release

To know your audience would be an extremely significant mark at any time a company was to communicate material to a group or organization. Knowing your audience proves to be even more significant when a company has to deal with the outcome resulting from a disaster. The disaster of the Chilean copper mine in South America is one example of where knowing your audience was a very significant issue.

In a Chilean copper mine, a disastrous downfall in one of the shafts of the mine has left 33 miners trapped 310 meters (1017 feet) below the ground. The outcomes of the company and their reaction to the disaster would eventually define how the world, their audience, would see them. It turns out to be very imperative that the representatives of the company who issues updates and information to the public know their audience well. The audience the company would be reporting to would be made up of the news correspondence, the victim's families, and the media. Not only would the company representative have to keep the prestige and point of view of the mining company in one piece, they would have to issue precise and straightforward information that would not always be in the greatest interest of the company's standing.

The collapse would not only have emotional impact on the 33 miners trapped underground, the family members of those miners would be distressed as well. The family members of those 33 men would have to wait in suffering before they would receive word of their family member's fate. When a disaster of this extent occurs, the company has the obligation to keep the family members knowledgeable every step of the rescue progression, above the news bulletin and media. Even though in the beginning the company may not have much information, it is essential for them to inform the loved ones with as much

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