Point blank: you can’t please everybody. Some people want quiet and simplicity, others want noise and plenty of features. But when you’re writing, it’s essential to know as much as possible about the audience that will be reading/watching/or listening to your work. You must find out who the majority of your users are as well as what they will want. Hilliard explains right away on page 1, “Every word, every visual image has to be created with the thousands and even millions of people who will be watching or listening in mind. When you write for a mass medium, you are writing for a mass audience”. It is important to always keep that particular audience in the forefront of your mind. Your audience is the ultimate key to what you create.

2) Be creative, yet simple!
Hilliard uses Ernest Hemingway’s style as a journalist and novelist an example to simplistic writing. The quote from Hemingway, “strip language clean...down to the bones” (Hilliard 60) is a great tool of advice for writers. It is crucial for a writer to be simple and direct. In addition, it is important for a writer to remember that with television, an action can’t be stopped in the middle of a sentence, as it can be done when one is reading. Therefore, choose your words carefully but simply, keeping in mind that the language goes by so quickly. Additionally, Hilliard describes on page 137 how writing should be simple, direct, and understandable. It is important to avoid abstract expressions and words that can have double meanings to them, but at the same time do not overdo the simplicity. Find a balance and go with it.
3) The government, although not part of the media, regulates what is being said.
“The FCC is authorized to levy fines or suspend a station’s license for communications containing profane or obscene words, language, or meaning” (Hilliard 13). I found it interesting to really learn and understand just how much the government can have control over censorship throughout media. Therefore, knowing the FCC has this power, it is important to make sure to be extremely cautious when writing, in order to avoid potential censoring to your piece. You must think twice about writing things that could prospectively come off as offensive, derogatory, insulting, or even racial. Talk shows are a big thing that the FCC has regulated. Nowadays, shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are great for presenting current events going on throughout the world, however, they are known for their humor as well as jokes. The writers for these shows need to be extra careful to know where to not cross the line. “The FCC has cracked down especially on talk show hosts who present materials the Commission deemed offensive” (Hilliard 14).
4) Guide your viewer to their next “click”.
The internet audience is incredibly individualized - there is merely one person sitting alone at a computer yet at the same time, potentially millions of people throughout the world are seeing and hearing at that same exact moment what you wrote. “You are simultaneously writing for an individual, for a small number of people who have a lot in common, and for a large number of people who may have little in common” (Hilliard 2). Therefore, it is essential to guide this viewer to do what you are trying to accomplish when creating a piece of work on the internet. "More than any in any other media, the writer must both anticipate what individual audience members' reactions and counter reactions will be and design a writing product that will guide the audience toward those choices that the writer thinks will achieve the purpose of the program or script." (Hilliard 46). This means that as an internet writer, you must say what you want to say all while keeping your audience interested which will ultimately direct them to their next "click".
5) Establish the mood - early and often.
“Establish mood. Sound can be used effectively as counterpoint to an individual character’s mood.” (Hilliard 33). Sound is a vital part of creating the media effectively. People relate easily to sound because it encourages emotion automatically, and also triggers the limbic brain to act or feel in a certain way. It is essential to visualize as well as anticipate the reaction your audience will have to the particular scene within your media. From there, you can choose which moods to focus on that will be most beneficial in getting the point you are trying to portray across.
6) Always consider ethics.
“One cannot work in the media in a vacuum. A writer in any genre of broadcasting must be knowledgeable about the world around him or her.”(Hilliard 73). Ethics is a huge thing to consider when writing for the media. Throughout your career, it is inevitable to consistently be faced with ethical dilemmas. The key is to really take these situations seriously and know when and where to draw the line. I learned from our class book that ethics especially come up in the area of commercials...“commercial advertising can be used responsibly; it can also be used irresponsibly. In this media area, more than any other, you will be faced throughout your career with hard ethical choices” (Hilliard 72). It is essential to come up with a set of working rules as well as a balance between your media and the public when it comes to ethics.
Below is an old commercial that has an immense amount of ethics involved - obviously having a children’s show advertise for cigarettes is not really okay to do...
7) Always come prepared.
I found it interesting the point Hilliard makes on page 303. He states, “The deejays who insist that everything they do is ad-lib, with no preparation, are, with few exceptions, either pretending or are amateurs who won’t last very long.” I feel that this is extremely true. Most DJs will say this, however, the top pros have every detail worked out in advance. Of course, as Hilliard mentioned too, there are always those few exceptions. I feel that for the most part, a professional doesn’t ever take a chance on making a mistake if it can be avoided. An additional form of media where preparation is vital is in interviews. “The key to a successful interview is preparation. The writer/researcher must dig deeply and the interviewer should be equally familiar with the interviewee’s background, attitudes and feelings. We’ve all seen too many interviewers who are obviously poorly prepared” (269 Hilliard). Preparation is a strong aspect to the key to success.
Credit: http://www.likecool.com/Gear/Pic/Prepare%20to%20Migrate/Prepare-to-Migrate.jpg
8) Be ethical, legal, and clean.
“Before you use any music on the internet, be sure you are ethically and legally clean and get proper clearances (Hilliard 322). Music on the internet has become extremely popular; more and more people are listening to as well as purchasing music on the internet. With this becoming so common, it is clear to see why it is so important to make sure your actions are considered to be ethically correct as well as legal. Nowadays it’s almost inevitable you will download music in an illegal or unethical manner. The problem is that most people just don’t care. It has just become the norm - everyone’s doing it. But it is important to do things the right way.
As stated in this youtube video entitled Illegal Downloading, “people don’t really consider it illegal, and even if they know it’s illegal they just don’t care - it’s like speeding 5 miles over”.
9) Be bold. Take risks.
8) Be ethical, legal, and clean.
“Before you use any music on the internet, be sure you are ethically and legally clean and get proper clearances (Hilliard 322). Music on the internet has become extremely popular; more and more people are listening to as well as purchasing music on the internet. With this becoming so common, it is clear to see why it is so important to make sure your actions are considered to be ethically correct as well as legal. Nowadays it’s almost inevitable you will download music in an illegal or unethical manner. The problem is that most people just don’t care. It has just become the norm - everyone’s doing it. But it is important to do things the right way.
As stated in this youtube video entitled Illegal Downloading, “people don’t really consider it illegal, and even if they know it’s illegal they just don’t care - it’s like speeding 5 miles over”.
9) Be bold. Take risks.
On page 267 Hilliard says, "The Writer should complete as much of a script as necessary and possible in all talk formats. Why take a chance with an unprepared question or unanticipated answer or an irrelevant series of comments when the chances of success are better with prepared material?" This is something that I do not completely agree with. Although - as stated earlier - it is best to come prepared, I feel that it is still extremely important to really take a step out of the box and do something bold and risky. You as a writer must know when it is the right time and place to do something out of the ordinary, but when you know that it is, keep things exciting and take chances! I feel that being bold shows confidence as well as creativity, which will only help you out in the long run.
10) Necessities for blogs
I did not learn this from the book, but rather from my professor, Rob Williams, at the very beginning of the semester.
In order to have a successful blog, you must:
1) have a sexy subject line
2) speak to the blog-o-sphere as a whole
no longer in class (get rid of the numbers, make it into a paragraph style, that
anyone can read & like)
3) always embed photos
(a pic is worth a thousand words)
**caption & credit the photo
4) hyperlink early & often
5) embed video
I kept this list with me as a sticky note on my laptop to refer to each time I went to blog. Before taking this class, I did not know the first thing about blogging. I’m really glad I took this class considering the experience I gained in electronic media writing.
