Just a Game? (Rebecca's RA)

This article is good at audience analysis because it targets a primarily LDS audience. The last sentence of the first paragraph reads, “He often stays up so late at night playing his game that he has begun to sleep through early-morning seminary.” Obviously, a primarily non-LDS audience would not even know what seminary is, let alone identify with the author’s concern for the boy who sleeps through it.

The next paragraph mentions that a gamer plays online games instead of reading scriptures and praying, which are two things of which the majority of Americans would not understand the significance.

The 2nd paragraph under the subtitle “Why Are These Games Cause for Concern?” mentions young men who do not serve missions because they “cannot” be away from their games and online gaming group for two whole years. Of course, this is really only a problem to LDS young men because young men of other faiths are not expected to serve two-year missions.

The section “How Do I Avoid Problems?” contains a Book of Mormon quote as well as many General Authority quotes. People of other faiths will not care about words from a book they do not believe in or counsel from authorities they are not subject to, so this is clearly written to appeal mainly to LDS people.

In addition, the article repeatedly makes references to “prophetic counsel”, something which even most Christians believe ceased with the original Apostles.

Because this article was printed in the Ensign, one has to expect it to be targeting an LDS audience. That is what makes it a perfect example of audience analysis.