Fictional and Factual Audience in Film

A technique that Aristotle emphasizes is the audience. Audience can be used rhetorically, meaning that the audience consists of people who can act upon the exigencies that prompted a speech or piece of writing. Using audience as part of the argument means that the audience has the power to advance the rhetor’s purpose, obstruct it, modify it or offer an alternative. There are two types of audience used in a persuasive argument. There is the factual audience and the fictional audience. Both types are crucial to state the point of an argument. However, both audiences have to be used in a certain way to get the point across.

When the rhetor wants to convey a message to a factual audience, he/she has to appeal to the actual flesh and blood people involved in the situation. The rhetor has to manipulate the factual audience using “pieces” of the audience. This means when stating an argument the rhetor has to use things such as age, residence, occupation, categories, likes, dislikes, beliefs, or values. The rhetor has to continually ask three questions: 1) Who is the most/least invested? 2) Who has the most/least power to affect the outcome? 3) Who will be the most/least difficult to persuade? These are the key questions in order to use a factual audience.

A fictional audience is the image that the rhetor projects through his/her writing or speech. This image will be the way that the factual audience will “see” themselves. However, in order for the factual audience to “see” themselves as a fictional audience, the rhetor has to choose images that people can identify with and one that will advance the rhetor’s purpose. These images will help progress the argument in the direction that the rhetor feels best.

In order to represent these two audiences, I created a documentary. The argument or topic I choose to portray in the documentary is music. Dividing the topic of music helps show and explain the argument. These ways are definition, division, comparison, relationship, circumstances, and testimonies. To appeal to the factual audience, I used a variety of interviews with multiple, races, genders, and ages. Those who are most invested in my chosen topic of music are all the people who like and enjoy music. This appeals to almost everyone in the world.

The fictional audience is reached by portraying other images that have a connection to the people, but at the same time express something new. I showed images of other cultures playing music, and pictures showing history and singers in the United States that people could identify with. By looking at these images, the audience would “see” themselves as the cause for social movements or “see” themselves as people playing instruments in another culture. Through definitions, divisions, comparisons, relationships, circumstances, and testimonies I was able to affectively manipulate both factual and fictional audiences.