How do you categorize groups of people as subjects?

Question

When compiling published content, one method of sorting or filtering is by audience. There, the term “audience” generally implies a curation of material for assumed identities of a readership (articles for students or for employees or for the community to read). It may appear like this:

Audience <-- the term for people within readership categories

• Students
• Employees
• Community

I’m looking instead for a similar word to “audience” that clearly indicates that the content is grouped by subject about those groups of people (articles about students or about employees or about the community), rather than for those groups of people:

(Requested Word) <-- a term for groups of people as subject categories

• Students
• Employees
• Community

Any thoughts? Thanks!

Answer 1

At first I thought that you were looking for 'demographic' (which means basically the same as 'audience' in this context), but this doesn't cover the the 'articles about students or about employees or about the community' part of your question.

Since you want a word to describe what the content is about, the best word would be 'topic', as it describes what a publication is about in the same way 'audience' describes who the publication is for (was aimed at). Since it is about the 'about', 'topic' can be on "people" without a problem.

From the dictionary: 'the subject or theme of a discourse or of one of its parts'.

Topic:

• Students
• Employees
• Community/ties

You can then define subtopics if you wish, such as 'What's it like being a student', 'Student Housing', 'Student Loans', etc.