Carefully manipulating the Audience

Whenever we're telling a story to an engaged audience, it is imperative that we understand that they have placed their safe keeping with us. As the purveyor of the world we are introducing them to, a high level of faith and confidence (mostly unearned) has been entrusted to us by them. They expect somewhat to be entertained, in exchange for spending some of their precious time on Earth being preoccupied with our tales, and on a deeper level, understanding our interpretation and proclamation on the human condition. As part of this bargain, the audience disregards all of their common sensibilities and inhibitions; to suspend their disbelief at the presentation of our story. The very fact that a viewer will consider whatever medium they're consuming as more than: simply written scribbles, optical illusions, changes in a vibration's frequency, or fallacious sensory feedback, puts us in a strong position that we have to accept by default. As long as they find our story enthralling, they will allow us to manipulate them.

Before we get to approach the stage where we engage the audience in dialogue - having them attentively hang onto our every breath - we must take great care when handling their sensibilities. After all, they have entrusted their psychological well being to us. Us being storytellers, we wield a great power. One that, if used recklessly, can irrevocably damage how a person perceives the world around them. A power that can influence false impressions towards any given subject on the observer. Said power gives us the ability to proclaim lies as truth. To mislead, misdirect and misinterpret a message in malignant fashion. It allow us to evoke evil as good, grace as merciless, maturity as fatuous, favour as disdain and calmness as calamitous, if we so choose. The very power that we wield as storytellers, is the power of assertion.

Assertion allows us to educate others on any topic that they are not knowledgeable about themselves. A story that presents new information in a manner that appears to be candid, will be very effective in how impressionable the reader becomes. For every medium, the audience experiences our story with a certain level of passivity. Something that, although it will vary depending on the individual, will still give us plenty of leeway to permeate ideas into their being. It is largely irrelevant if the concepts they receive come from our preferred reading or not. What matters is that this process is assured and our story will be formative to some degree.

This is not to say that we should fear such power. No, to fear what you wield is to be controlled by it. To allow ourselves as creators to be influenced by our ability to manipulate our audience, is to onset pandemonium into our works, our psyche and our very existence. If we allow the concept of manipulation to manipulate us, we lose our ability to master our own knowledge, forever doomed to be enslaved by it. Rather, we embrace this strength, instead learning to control it. Impart it into our craft with intentionality and adeptly weave it into our stories, with the aim to bring about the desired emotional response and intellectual wonderment, in our audience. We must manipulate our audience wisely and acknowledge the truth about manipulation in terms of storytelling. That no matter what we do when we create our story, we manipulate the reader in some way. If they accept even a solitary moment, whether we think it intentional or not, it is purely because of said influence that we exert upon them. The sooner we acknowledge the gospel, the more timely our stories get to become greater and the faster we develop in our capabilities.

However, a word of warning. As I've stated prior, our stories need their voice and our intention to intertwine, if we desire to manipulate our audience effectively. Earlier in this report, I mentioned very briefly the concept of preferred readings. To summarise it simply, a preferred reading is:

where the sender of a message consciously or unconsciously develops it in ways which intends to guide, limit, or control its interpretation by receivers

_{Oxford Reference, 'Preferred Reading', Archived on 22 May 2020 07:21 BST}

While this concept is wildly contested by sociologists, I want to present how similar this idea is to us when we create stories. For someone, our material will be the first time they've ever been captivated by our portrayed subject matter or style of presentation. If this is the case, that means we can exert influence over certain individuals moreso than others. In this case, we will be their initial reference for future narratives and perspectives that they come across in a similar vein. Additionally, while preferred readings do not mean that we can erase the audience's pre-existing knowledge, we do have the opportunity to press into sentiment. How we portray our ideas can derive an emotional response of all kinds, and we can do so deliberately. To another end, it also gives us the chance to subvert the audience's expectations (however, I feel that this in particular is a long discussion that deserves an analysis of it's own).

Although I do not wish for us to change how we approach storytelling because of the implications with manipulation, I do want us to appreciate the role we have as creators, and to understand the transaction that takes place. The audience gives us their attention and we get to manipulate it.