Analyzing and Adapting to Your Audience

1. Analyzing and Adapting to Your Audience

2. Goal is….to learn enough about your audience so that you are able to adapt your purpose, goal, and eventual message so that they welcome rather than reject your speech.

3. How do you accomplish this goal? • First, consider your audience. • Is this a voluntary or captive audience • Voluntary members choose to be there • Captive audience members are there because they have to be • Next, learn as much about them as you can.

4. Audience Diversity • Three Levels • Cultural • Demographic • Individual

5. Cultural Diversity • Power distance • Extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organizations expect and accept that power is distributed unequally • Collectivism vs. individualism • Good of the many outweighs that of the few vs every man for himself orientation • Femininity vs. Masculinity • Social gender roles overlap vs one where social gender roles are very distinct

6. Demographic Diversity • Age • Gender/Sex • Ethnicity • Geographic Origin • Socioeconomic status • Occupation • Religion

7. Demographic Diversity • Age • Gender/Sex • Ethnicity • not same thing as culture, although closely related • Geographic Origin • International, regional differences

8. Demographic Diversity • Socioeconomic status • not always directly observable • you can sometimes make inferences though not always reliable • Occupation • respect full range of occupations in audience • Religion • Be tolerant and respectful of those who don’t share your view • Language • Special vocabulary for interest or activity

9. Individual Diversity • Beliefs • Values • Motives • Why are they attending the speech? • Attitudes • Not simply beliefs, but ways of responding • Knowledge • How much do they know • Expectations • Do they expect to be entertained, informed, or persuaded • Needs

10. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

11. Learning About Your Audience • Observation • Ask someone familiar with the audience • Survey your audience • Brief and anonymous

12. Recognize Constraints • Legal • Libel and slander • Ethical • Nature of the occasion • Tradition • Time • Resources

13. Exercise/Class Discussion • Given the topic of alcohol abuse, how might you develop your speech presentation differently if your audience were made up of (a) high school students (b) students your own age (c) bar and tavern owners (d) recovering alcoholics

14. Group Exercise • Given the topic of social networking websites, how might you develop your speech presentation differently if your audience were made up of (a) teenagers (b) students your own age (c) young professionals (d) law enforcement authorities