Chapter 9: Analyzing the AudienceThis chapter is adapted from Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Show
How do I acknowledge the audience?The following sections are adapted from section 5.1 of Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. “Training Course Business”, by Mohamed, licensed under Pixabay LicenseIdentify Different Ways to Acknowledge Your AudiencePicture yourself in front of the audience about to deliver your speech. This is the moment when your relationship with your audience begins, and the quality of this relationship will influence how receptive they will be to your ideas, or at least how willing they’ll be to listen to what you have to say. One of the best ways to initiate this relationship is to find a way to acknowledge your audience. This can be as simple as establishing eye contact and thanking them for coming to hear your presentation. If they’ve braved bad weather, are missing a world-class sports event, or are putting up with an inconvenient stuffy conference room, tell them how much you appreciate their presence in spite of the circumstances. These gestures go a long way towards warming them up to hear your message. For instance, when a political candidate who travels from town to town giving the same campaign speech makes a statement like this, “It’s great to be here in Springfield, and I want to thank the West Valley League of Women Voters and our hosts, the Downtown Senior Center, for the opportunity to be with you today,” it lets the audience know that the candidate has at least taken the trouble to tailor the speech to the present audience. Be ClearNext, make sure that you state your topic clearly at the outset, using words that your audience will understand. Letting them know what your speech is about shows that you respect them as listeners and that you value their time and attention. Also, throughout your speech, define your terms clearly and carefully to avoid misleading or alarming people by mistake. Avoid using jargon or language that excludes listeners who aren’t familiar with topic-specific terms. If you have analyzed your audience appropriately, you’ll know to whom you’re speaking and present a clear, decisive message that lets listeners know what you think, and you will avoid making any fear-based or offensive statements. Conversely, if you have hastily approached audience analysis—the process of learning all you reasonably can about your audience—you might find yourself presenting a speech with no clear message. Adapt Your Speech to the Audience’s NeedsWe learn public speaking to inform various audiences and hopefully do some good. In some cases, your audience might consist of young children who are not ready to accept the fact that a whale is not a fish. In other cases, your audience could include fixed-income retirees who might not agree that raising local taxes is a vital future investment. Even in an audience who appears to be homogeneous—composed of people who are very similar to one another—different listeners will understand the same ideas in different ways. Every member of every audience has his or her own frame of reference—the unique set of perspectives, experiences, knowledge, and values belonging to every individual. For example, an audience member who has been in a car accident caused by a drunk driver might not appreciate a lighthearted joke about barhopping. These examples illustrate why audience analysis is so centrally important. Audience analysis includes considering your audience’s demographic information, such as the gender, age, marital status, race, and ethnicity. Another less obvious demographic factor is socioeconomic status, which refers to a combination of income, wealth, education level, and occupational prestige. Each dimension gives you some information about which topics and which various topic aspects will be well received. For example, suppose you are preparing to give an informative speech about early childhood health care. If your audience are couples who have recently had a new baby and live in an affluent suburb, you can expect that they will be young adults with high socioeconomic status and that they are eager to know about the very best available health care for their children. In contrast, if your audience are nurses, they may differ in age but will have similar educational levels and occupational prestige. They will already know much about the topic, so find an interesting aspect that may be new for them, such as community health care resources for families with limited financial resources, or referral services for children with special needs. Audience analysis also takes into account psychographic information, which is more personal and more difficult to predict than demographics. Psychographic information involves the beliefs, attitudes, and values that your audience members embrace. Respecting your audience means that you avoid offending, excluding, or trivializing the beliefs and values they hold. Returning to the early childhood health care topic, expect new parents to be passionate about wanting the best for their child. The psychographics of nurses would revolve around their professional competence and the need to provide standards-of-care for their patients. Audience DiversityDiversity is a key dimension to know about your audience, and therefore, an important part of audience analysis. While the term diversity is often used to refer to racial and ethnic minorities, it is important to realize that audiences can be diverse in many other ways as well. Being mindful of diversity means being respectful of all people and striving to avoid racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, ageism, elitism, and other assumptions. An interesting “ism” that is not often mentioned is chronocentrism, or the assumption that people today are superior to people who lived in earlier eras (Russell, 1991). Sociologists John R. Logan and Wenquan Zhang analyzed racial and ethnic diversity in US cities and observed a pattern that rewrites the traditional rules of neighborhood change (Logan & Zhang, 2010). For example, in our grandparents’ day, a racially mixed neighborhood included African American and white residents; in recent decades, many more people from a variety of Asian and Latin American countries have immigrated to the United States. As a result, many city neighborhoods are richly diverse, including Asian, Hispanic, and African American cultural influences as well as those of white European Americans. Each cultural group consists of people from many communities and occupations. Each cultural group came to the United States for different reasons and came from different communities and occupations within their original cultures. Even though it can be easy to assume that people from a culture are exactly like each other, we undermine our credibility when we create our message as though members of these cultures are carbon copies of each other. While race, ethnicity, and culture may be relatively visible aspects of diversity, there are many other aspects that are less obvious, so be aware that your audience is often more diverse than you might initially think. For example, suppose you are going to give a talk on pool safety to very affluent suburban community residents. Ask yourself, will all your audience members be wealthy? No. There might be some who are unemployed, some who are behind on their mortgage payments, some who live in rented rooms, not to mention some who work as babysitters or housekeepers. Furthermore, if your listeners have some characteristic in common, it doesn’t mean that they all think alike. For instance, if your audience consists of military family members, don’t assume that they all have identical beliefs about national security. If there are many business students in your audience, don’t assume they all agree about the relative importance of ethics and profits. Instead, recognize that a range of opinions exists. This is where the frame of reference we mentioned earlier becomes an important concept. People have a variety of reasons for making the choices they make and for doing the things they do. For instance, a business student, while knowing that profitability is important, might have a strong interest in green lifestyles, low energy use, and alternative energy sources—areas of economic development that might require large investments before profits are realized. These examples illustrate how important it is to use audience analysis to avoid stereotyping—taking for granted that people with a certain characteristic in common have the same likes, dislikes, values, and beliefs. All our audience members are unique individuals and deserve to receive equal sensitivity and respect. Respecting diversity is not merely a public speaking responsibility; it is a responsibility worthy of embracing in all our human interactions. Offending Your AudienceIt might seem obvious that audience analysis automatically inhibits speakers from making offensive remarks, but even very experienced speakers sometimes forget this basic rule. For example, if you are an Anglo-American elected official addressing a Latino audience, would you make a joke about a Mexican American person’s name sounding similar to the name of a popular tequila brand? We didn’t choose our race, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual orientation, intellectual potential, or appearance. We already know that jokes aimed at people because of their membership in these groups are not just politically incorrect but also ethically wrong. Not only does insensitive humor offend an audience, be aware of language and nonverbal behaviors that state or imply a negative message about people based on their various membership groups. Examples include language that suggests that all scientists are men, that all relationships are heterosexual, or that all ethnic minorities are unpatriotic. By the same token, avoid embedding assumptions about people in your messages. Even the most subtle suggestion may not go unnoticed. If you alienate your audience, they will stop listening. They will refuse to accept your message, no matter how true or important it is. They might even become hostile. If you fail to recognize your audience members’ complexity and if you treat them as stereotypes, they will resent your assumptions and doubt your credibility. Ethical SpeakingEthos is the term Aristotle used to refer to what we now call credibility—the perception that the speaker is honest, knowledgeable, and rightly motivated. Your ethos, or credibility, must be established as you build rapport with your listeners. Have you put forth the effort to learn who they are and what you can offer them in your speech? Do you respect them as individual human beings? Do you respect them enough to serve their needs and interests? Is your topic relevant and appropriate for them? Is your approach honest and sensitive to their preexisting beliefs? Your ability to answer these questions in a constructive way must be based on the best demographic and psychographic information you can use to learn about your listeners. The audience needs to know they can trust the speaker’s motivations, intentions, and knowledge. They must believe that the speaker has no hidden motives, will not manipulate or trick them, and has their best interests at heart. To convey regard and respect for your audience, be sincere. Examine the motives behind your topic choice, your speech’s true purpose, and your willingness to work to make sure your speech’s content is true and real. This can be difficult for students who face time constraints and multiple demands on their efforts. However, the attitude you assume for this task represents, in part, the kind of professional, citizen, parent, and human being you want to be. What are ethical appeals and why are they important for getting the audience to listen?Ethical appeals represent your speech’s content. Properly understanding and using ethical appeals is an element of effective speechmaking and is very beneficial for you in this public speaking class and in your world outside of this class. You can use these appeals to inform, and better yet, to persuade your audience or whoever you are talking to! It is very important that you learn these appeals and apply them in your speeches. You will notice these appeals throughout this course, and some you have already seen. Let’s look a little more closely at what ethical appeals are, and more importantly, how you can relate each appeal back to your speech.
Watch this video to learn more and see some fun examples: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos examples, by Chloe Isaac, Standard YouTube License. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuFmFkj3Ofw Keep in mind when it comes to informing and persuading an audience, it is important to teach the audience by using all three appeals. Everyone connects to information differently, and everyone is persuaded by different appeal combinations. Think about yourself: are you more informed or persuaded by Ethos, Pathos, Logos, or a combination? What makes you take action? What makes you want to listen and understand something? Is it someone’s use of logic-Logos? Is it someone’s emotional plea-Pathos? Or, is it who they are or their credibility-Ethos? Or, a combination? How do I choose an effective topic?The following sections are adapted from section 5.1 of Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. How to Choose an Effective TopicYour topic selection reflects your regard for the audience. There is no universal list of good or bad topics, but you have an ethical responsibility to select a topic that is worth listening to. As a student, you are probably sensitive to how unpleasant it is to listen to a speech on a highly complex or technical topic that you find impossible to understand. Conversely, consider that audiences do not want to waste their time or attention listening to a speech that is too simple. For example, if your speech’s purpose is to inform or persuade students in your public speaking class, a topic such as fitness or drunk driving is unlikely to go very far toward informing your audience, and in all likelihood, it will not persuade them either. Instead, your audience members and your professor will quickly recognize that you are thinking of your own needs rather than your audience’s. It behooves you to seek a topic that is novel and interesting both for you and for your audience. It is also important to conduct some credible research to ensure that even the most informed audience members learn something from you. There are many topics that could provide a refreshing departure from your usual academic studies. Topics such as the Bermuda Triangle, biopiracy, the environmental niche of sharks, the green lifestyle, and the historic Oneida Community, all provide interesting views of human and natural phenomena not usually provided in public education. Such topics are more likely to hold your classroom audience’s interest than topics they’ve heard about time and time again. Be aware that your audience will not have the same knowledge set that you do. For instance, if you are speaking about biopiracy, define it and give a clear example. If your speech is on the green lifestyle, frame it as a realistic choice, not a goal so remote as to be hopeless. In each case, use audience analysis to consider how your audience will respond to you, your topic, and your message. Choosing a TopicBefore you get working on any speech, first, pick a topic. When choosing your speech’s topic, remember these very important concepts:
Controversial TopicsSome of the most interesting topics are controversial. They are controversial topics because people have deeply felt values and beliefs on different sides of those topics. For instance, before you choose nuclear energy as your topic, investigate the many voices speaking out both in favor and against increasing its use. Many people perceive nuclear energy as a clean, reliable, and much-needed energy source. Others say that even mining uranium is harmful to the environment, that we lack satisfactory solutions for storing nuclear waste, and that nuclear power plants are vulnerable to errors and attacks. Another group might view the issue economically, believing that industry needs nuclear energy. Engineers might believe that if the national grid could be modernized, we would have enough energy and that we should strive to use and waste less energy until modernization is feasible. The topic is extremely controversial, and yet it is interesting and very important. Don’t avoid controversy altogether, but choose your topic carefully. Moreover, how you treat your audience is just as important as how you treat your topic. If your audience has widely diverse views, take the time to acknowledge the concerns they have. Treat them as intelligent people, even if you don’t trust the completeness or the accuracy of their beliefs about your topic. How do I gather and use audience informationThe following sections are adapted from section 5.2 of Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. “Company Social Network Community”, by Hurca, licensed under Pixabay LicenseWhile audience analysis does not guarantee against judgment errors, it will help you make good topic, language, presentation style, and other speech-aspect choices. The more you know about your audience, the better you can serve their interests and needs. There are certainly limits to what we can learn through information collection, so acknowledge this before making assumptions. But knowing how to gather and use information through audience analysis is an essential skill for successful speakers. Demographic AnalysisAs indicated earlier, demographic information includes factors such as gender, age, marital status, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. In your public speaking class, you probably already know how many students are male and female, their approximate ages, and so forth. But how can you assess an audience’s demographics ahead of time if you have had no previous contact with them? In many cases, you can ask the person or organization who has invited you to speak; it’s likely that they can tell you much about the audience demographics. Whatever method you use to gather demographics, exercise respect from the outset. For instance, if you are collecting information about whether audience members have ever been divorced, be aware that not everyone will want to answer your questions. You can’t require them to do so, and you may not make assumptions about their reluctance to discuss the topic. You must allow them their privacy. Demographic Analysis
Psychographic AnalysisEarlier, we mentioned psychographic information, which includes such things as values, opinions, attitudes, and beliefs. Authors Grice and Skinner present a model in which values are the basis for beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Grice & Skinner, 2009). They say, “A value expresses a judgment of what is desirable and undesirable, right and wrong, or good and evil. Values are usually stated in the form of a word or phrase. For example, most of us probably share the values of equality, freedom, honesty, fairness, justice, good health, and family. These values compose the principles or standards we use to judge and develop our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.” It is important to recognize that while demographic information is fairly straightforward and verifiable, psychographic information is much less clearcut. Two different people who both say they believe in equal education
opportunities may have very different interpretations of what equal opportunities are. We also acknowledge that people inherit values from their family upbringing, cultural influences, and life experiences. The extent to which someone values family loyalty and parent obedience, thrift, humility, and work may be determined by these influences more than by individual choice. Psychographic analysis can reveal preexisting notions that limit your audience’s frame of reference. By knowing about such
notions ahead of time, you can address them in your speech. Audiences are likely to have two basic kinds of preexisting notions: those about the topic and those about the speaker. Psychographic Analysis
Situational AnalysisThe next type of analysis is called the situational audience analysis because it focuses on characteristics related to the specific speaking situation. The situational audience analysis can be divided into two main questions:
Situational Analysis
What tools can I use for gathering and using audience information?The following sections are adapted from section 5.3 of Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Now that we have described what audience analysis is and why it is important, let’s examine how to conduct it. Exactly how can you learn about the people who will make up your audience? Direct ObservationOne way to learn about people is to observe them. By observing nonverbal behavior patterns, you’ll learn much as long as you are careful how you interpret the behaviors. For instance, do people greet each other with a handshake, a hug, a smile, or a nod? Do men and women make physical contact? Does the setting suggest more conservative behavior? Listen to conversations to hear issues that concern people. Are people in a school campus center talking about political unrest in the Middle East? About concerns over future Pell Grant funding? Consider eavesdropping’s ethical dimensions, however. Are you simply overhearing an open conversation, or are you prying into a highly personal or private discussion? Interviews and SurveysBecause your demographic analysis will be limited to your most likely audience, your most accurate way to learn about them is to seek personal information through interviews and surveys. An interview is a one-on-one exchange in which you ask one respondent questions. A survey is set questions administered to several—or, preferably, many—respondents. Conduct interviews face-to-face, by phone, or by written means, such as texting. Interviews allow more in-depth discussions than surveys, and interviews are also more time consuming. Surveys are also sometimes conducted face-to-face or by phone, but online surveys are increasingly common. Collect and tabulate survey results manually, or set up an automated online survey through either free or subscription portal sites such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang. Using an online survey provides the advantage of keeping responses anonymous, which may increase your audience members’ willingness to participate and to answer personal questions. Surveys are an efficient way to collect information quickly; however, in contrast to interviews, they don’t allow for follow-up questions to help you understand why your respondent gave a certain answer. Whether you use interviews or surveys, there are several important things to keep in mind:
In addition, when you conduct interviews and surveys, keep in mind that people are sometimes less than honest in describing their beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. This tendency is a widely recognized interview and survey weakness, known as socially desirable responding—the tendency to give responses that are considered socially acceptable. Marketing professor Ashok Lalwani divides socially desirable responding into two types: (1) impression management, or intentionally portraying oneself in a favorable light and (2) self-deceptive enhancement, or exaggerating one’s good qualities, often unconsciously (Lalwani, 2009). To reduce these socially desirable responding effects, choose your questions carefully. As marketing consultant Terry Vavra advises, “One should never ask what one can’t logically expect respondents to honestly reveal” (Vavra, 2009). For example, if you want to know audience members’ attitudes about body piercing, you are likely to get more honest answers by asking, “Do you think body piercing is attractive?” rather than, “How many piercings do you have and where on your body are they located?” Focus GroupsA focus group is a small group of people who give you feedback about their perceptions. As with interviews and surveys, use a limited, carefully prepared question list designed to get at the information you need to understand your audiences’ beliefs, attitudes, and values as they are specifically topic related. If you conduct a focus group, part of your task will be striking a balance between allowing the discussion to flow freely according to what group members have to say and keeping the group focused on the questions. It’s also your job to guide the group in maintaining responsible and respectful behavior towards each other. In evaluating focus group feedback, do your best to be receptive to what people had to say whether or not it conforms to what you expected. Your purpose in conducting the focus group is to understand group members’ beliefs, attitudes, and values about your topic, not to confirm your assumptions. Using Existing Data about Your AudienceOccasionally, audience information already exists and is available. For instance, if you have a student audience, it might not be difficult to find out what their academic majors are. You might also find out how invested they are in their educations. For instance, you can reasonably assume that seniors are successful students who have invested at least three years pursuing a higher education. Sophomores have at least survived their first year, but may not have matched the seniors in demonstrating strong values toward education and the work ethic necessary to earn a degree. In another audience, you might be able to learn other significant facts. For instance, are they veterans? Are they retired teachers? Do they volunteer at civic organizations such as Lions Club or Mothers Against Drunk Driving? This information will help you respond to their concerns and interests. In other cases, use public and private organizations’ demographics. Every year, the United States Census Bureau conducts demographic analysis through the American Community Survey and other specialized demographic surveys (Bureau of the Census, 2011; Bureau of the Census, 2011). The US Census Bureau analysis generally captures information about people in all US regions, but you can also drill down in census data to see results by state, age group, gender, race, and other factors. Demographic information about narrower segments of the US, such as individual zip codes, is available through private organizations such as The Nielsen Company, Sperling’s Best Places, and Point2Homes. Sales and marketing professionals use this data, and you may find it useful for your audience analysis as well. Why should I always keep the audience in mind?The following sections are adapted from section 5.4 of Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. How an Audience Analysis Can Help a Speaker Alter a Speech While SpeakingA good audience analysis takes time, thought, preparation, implementation, and processing. If done well, it will yield information that will help you interact effectively with your audience. Professional speakers, corporate executives, sales associates, and entertainers all rely on audience analysis to connect with their listeners. So do political candidates, whose chances of gaining votes depend on crafting the message and mood to appeal to each specific audience. One audience might be preoccupied with jobs, another with property taxes, and another with crime. Similarly, your audience analysis should help you identify your audiences’ interests. Ultimately, a successful audience analysis can guide you in preparing your basic speech content and help you adjust your speech on the fly. Prepare Content with Your Audience in MindThe first thing a good audience analysis can do is to help you focus your content for your specific audience. If you are planning to deliver a persuasive speech on why people should become vegans and you find out through analysis that half your audience come from cattle ranching families, you need to carefully think through your content approach. Maybe you’ll need to tweak your topic to focus on just the benefits of veganism without trying to persuade the audience explicitly. The last thing you want to do as a speaker is stand before an audience who is highly negative toward your topic before you ever open your mouth. While there will always be some naysayers in any audience, if you think through your topic with your audience in mind, you may be able to find a topic that will be both interesting to you as a speaker and beneficial to your audience as well. In addition to adjusting your speech’s topic prior to the speaking event, you can also use your audience analysis to help ensure that your speech’s content will be as clear and understandable as humanly possible. Use your audience analysis to help make sure that you are clear. One area to be careful of is using idioms that your audience may not know. An idiom is a word or phrase in which the meaning cannot be predicted from normal, dictionary definitions. Many idioms are based on culture or an historical time. Adjusting Your Speech Based on Your AnalysisIn addition to using audience analysis to help formulate speech content, you can also use audience analysis to make adjustments during the actual speech. These adjustments can pertain to the audience and to the physical setting. The audience feedback you receive during your speech invaluably indicates ways to adjust your presentation. If you’re speaking after lunch and notice audience members looking drowsy, make adjustments to liven up your speech’s tone. Use humor. Raise your voice slightly. Pose some questions and ask for a show of hands to get your listeners actively involved. Other audience feedback such as frowns and head shaking mean that some listeners aren’t convinced by your arguments. In this case, spend more time on a specific topic area and provide more evidence than you originally intended. Good speakers learn a lot by watching their audience while speaking, and then they make specific adjustments to both the speech content and delivery to enhance the speech’s ultimate impact. The second adjustment type has to do with your speech’s physical setting. For example, your situational analysis may reveal that you’ll be speaking in a large auditorium when you had expected a nice, cozy conference room. If you’ve created visual aids for a small, intimate environment, you may have to omit them, or tell your listeners that they can view them after the presentation. You may also need to account for a microphone. If you’re lucky enough to have a cordless microphone, you won’t have to make too many adjustments to your speaking style. If, on the other hand, the microphone is corded or is attached to an unmovable podium, make adjustments to how you deliver the presentation. ReferencesUniversity of Minnesota. (2011). Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Media ReferencesHow do you adapt your speech to your audience?Engage the audience — get them interested, give them a reason to listen.. Describe a scene or a character.. Tell a story.. Share a personal experience.. Relate to a recent event.. Piggyback on a previous speaker's remark or theme.. Point out something important about the audience or the current setting.. What is adapting to listener feedback?Adapting to Feedback. When you see signs that you're losing the audience's attention, it is time for to switch gears and adapt to the situation. The technique you use to change the situation is completely dependent upon your assessment of who the audience is.
What is adapted speech?Introduction. Speaker adaptation refers to the technology whereby a speech recognition system is adapted to the acoustic features of a specific user using an extremely small sample of utterances when the system is used.
When you tell your audience about your personal experience with the topic you are?One way to build credibility in the introduction is to be prepared and appear confident. A way to establish proximity is to tell the audience of your personal experience with your topic. A credibility statement is an organizational strategy called a signpost.
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