I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all answer for a “general audience” that would apply to all people around the world.
This is why I specified by education level (and I thought I’d specified Americans or Europeans, but apparently not), though I’ll admit that I’d been thinking primarily in terms of English-speaking people (though this is an English forum, and I’m not likely to be writing for a non-English-speaking audience). I also didn’t specify that I’m not really talking about cultural common knowledge; I’m not expecting a typical Londoner to have the same culinary knowledge as a typical person from Nashville.
However, the kinds of things that I think are generally regarded as common knowledge are also relatively culturally insensitive, and I do expect that the typical college graduate from London and the typical college graduate from Nashville have quite a lot of overlap in their secondary education curricula. When I say ‘quite a lot’, I just mean that, if you have a good understanding of one group’s common common knowledge, you’ll be able to use that with the other group, at least for things that are generally made for a “general audience”. The main reason I think this is true is that watching British TV and watching American TV isn’t any different, in terms of what I’m expected to know, apart from cultural references. Similarly, as an American, I’ve never really run into problems related to assumed knowledge while talking to non-Americans. (The main exception here might be history education.) Then again, a majority of the non-Americans that I talk to I meet either through either the rationalist community or academia, so there may be some selection bias. Also, it’s possible that the wide proliferation of American media gives non-Americans a good sense of what they can assume Americans know. Am I wrong? Are American and European audiences sufficiently different that they usually require different accommodations?
There are few events aimed at a world audience—the Olympics, some United Nations events, so you could study some of those and see what they assume of people.
I like this idea, though I’m unsure how to find media that isn’t written mainly for a particular nationality, and that assumes anything apart from English literacy. (That said, I do find the problem of making signage for an event like the Olympics to be interesting.)
This is why I specified by education level (and I thought I’d specified Americans or Europeans, but apparently not), though I’ll admit that I’d been thinking primarily in terms of English-speaking people (though this is an English forum, and I’m not likely to be writing for a non-English-speaking audience). I also didn’t specify that I’m not really talking about cultural common knowledge; I’m not expecting a typical Londoner to have the same culinary knowledge as a typical person from Nashville.
However, the kinds of things that I think are generally regarded as common knowledge are also relatively culturally insensitive, and I do expect that the typical college graduate from London and the typical college graduate from Nashville have quite a lot of overlap in their secondary education curricula. When I say ‘quite a lot’, I just mean that, if you have a good understanding of one group’s common common knowledge, you’ll be able to use that with the other group, at least for things that are generally made for a “general audience”. The main reason I think this is true is that watching British TV and watching American TV isn’t any different, in terms of what I’m expected to know, apart from cultural references. Similarly, as an American, I’ve never really run into problems related to assumed knowledge while talking to non-Americans. (The main exception here might be history education.) Then again, a majority of the non-Americans that I talk to I meet either through either the rationalist community or academia, so there may be some selection bias. Also, it’s possible that the wide proliferation of American media gives non-Americans a good sense of what they can assume Americans know. Am I wrong? Are American and European audiences sufficiently different that they usually require different accommodations?
I like this idea, though I’m unsure how to find media that isn’t written mainly for a particular nationality, and that assumes anything apart from English literacy. (That said, I do find the problem of making signage for an event like the Olympics to be interesting.)