Editing Synthetic personalisation (section)

{{Short description|Addressing mass audience as individuals}}
{{about|how individuals are synthetically created within mass audiences|how media construct personalities for themselves|synthetic personality}}

'''Synthetic personalisation''' is the process of addressing mass audiences as though they were individuals through inclusive language usage. It developed from [[critical discourse analysis]] (CDA), a branch of [[sociolinguistics]] concentrating upon how power is articulated.

[[Norman Fairclough]], credited with developing the concept, calls it "a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people 'handled' ''en masse'' as an individual.  Examples would be air travel (''have a nice day''), [and] restaurants (''welcome to [[Wimpy (restaurant)|Wimpy]]!'')" (2001: 52).

The use of second person [[pronoun]]s contributes significantly to the process of synthetic personalisation within the [[mass media]].  It is extremely common to encounter constructions such as "See you after the break" on television shows prior to [[television commercial|commercial breaks]]. (This example is also common in Paddy Scannell's concept of Broadcast Sociability.)

[[Mary M. Talbot|Mary Talbot]] ([1995]/2003) used the concept in her work on a ''synthetic sisterhood'' in teenage girls' [[magazines]], analysing the linguistic devices (''[[pronouns]], [[presupposition]]s'') constructing a simulated friendship between reader and producer. Using a variety of [[sociolinguistics|sociolinguistic]] concepts, including [[positive politeness]], she comments upon the [[ideology|ideological]] implications, such as [[patriarchy]].