STEP 1: Define the target audience.
Who gets the message?
The target audience is the group of people you plan to reach with your
message. Once you decide on your target audience, it is important to learn
as much about them as possible. What characteristics do they share? You
can define them in terms of physical and demographic characteristics, such
as age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, educational level, language,
occupation, and geographic location. You can also define them by behavioral
and psychographic characteristics, such as media exposure, lifestyle, attitudes,
opinions, beliefs, and values. The more you know about your target audience,
the better prepared you will be to develop appropriate materials for them.
Why adapt to cultural differences?
An important attitude in developing materials for specific populations
is to show respect for cultural differences in our society and acknowledge
that as Americans we are a society made up of people from many different
ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. By its very nature, health communication
is very personal. Therefore it is all the more important that the individual
citizen senses that the material is meant for him or her. Cultural sensitivity
of print materials can be positive by including words, images, or situations
that are common to the audience's daily life. But just as important, and
a frequent failing of materials intended for Hispanic groups, is to avoid
showing ignorance of, or insensitivity toward, a certain audience. One example
of this common failing is when materials presented in Spanish are phrased
so that it is clear that they were just translated directly from English
without regard to local language patterns and word uses. The present guidelines
will assist you in preparing or selecting materials that are culturally
sensitive and appropriate.
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