Vaughan’s VOCABULARY

UAB’S Communication Studies Department, directed by Dr. Timothy Levine, has hired me to teach Copywriting for Broadcast Media. The course’s textbook, Writing for Television, Radio, and New Media by Dr. Robert L. Hilliard points out that the author began his media writing career as a sports reporter and, after service in World War II, became a radio-writer announcer and a writer-director in the fledgling television field.

I love Hilliard’s opening: “During the process of writing, the writer is usually isolated, alone in a room with whatever instruments she or he uses: pen, pencil, computer. Yet every word, every visual image has to be created with the thousands and even millions of people in mind who will be watching or listening. When you write for a mass medium, you are writing for a mass audience. The nature of that audience must constantly be in the forefront of your mind and be the key to what you create.”

This week I’m quizzing you on words I’ve lifted out of Hilliard’s text.

1. individualized

A. singly promoted

B. ubiquitous

C. personalized

D. promulgated

Hilliard points out that compact and receiving mobile devices make it possible for almost any individual, anywhere, to receive what you are communicating; the Internet audience is even more individualized while at the same time being limitless. No. 1 is C.

2. narrowcasting

A. spreading an ad over a small geographical area or to a select group of audience

B. the attempt to deliver custom-tailored ads based on demographic, psychographic, and buying patterns to potential recipients who are predisposed to it

C. programming oriented toward specialized audiences

D. cable television, direct mail, and seminars are examples

The Business Dictionary website gave me the definitions in No. 2. All four apply.

3. demographics

A. geographical data that are demonstrated

B. the ratings of narrowcast programs

C. factoids about programs

D. the makeup of the potential audience for a given program or station

4. psychographics

A. an audience analysis that tries to determine attitudes, beliefs, and behavior

B. cognitive dissonance

C. caveat emptor

D. scintillating dialogue in an ad

No. 3, of course, is D. Hilliard reminds us that the principal demographics are age and gender within the given market’s locale.

No. 4 is A. Psychographics can tell advertisers not only whether the potential customer is likely to want to buy the product, but how they feel about it.