NM3413 Audience Analysis

1. 4 NM3413 Audience Analysis Culture’s Influence on Perception

2. OVERVIEW • Senses and limitations • Effect of culture on sensing • The three-step process of perceiving • Barriers to intercultural communication

3. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing “People see the world differently” People differ culturally in... • how they physiologically experience the world or • how they interpret what they experience?

4. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing Our Senses and Their Limitations • Sight • Hearing • Smell • Taste • Touch

5. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing Our Senses and Their Limitations • Sight • Hearing • Smell • Taste • Touch • See objects the size of a cantaloupe at a distance of 1,200 feet. • 20% of what is available to be seen is lost or distorted in transit to the human brain.

6. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing Our Senses and Their Limitations • Sight • Hearing • Smell • Taste • Touch • Has a workably conscious sound spectrum covering a range from 20 to 20,000 vibration cycles per second – roughly 10 octaves • Plus partly conscious “sensing” of higher and lower frequencies • A normal loss of fidelity estimated at between 22% and 25%

7. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing Our Senses and Their Limitations • Sight • Hearing • Smell • Taste • Touch • Can differentiate among about 5,000 different smells down to a threshold of stimulation of as little as 400 molecules of a substance. • Smell is a less reliable human sense.

8. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing Our Senses and Their Limitations • Sight • Hearing • Smell • Taste • Touch • Has about 10,000 differentiated taste sensations in relation to the basic sensations of bitter, sour, and sweet. • “Umami” is best described as “savoriness” • To taste a substance requires about 25,000 times more molecules than are required to smell it.

9. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing Our Senses and Their Limitations • Sight • Hearing • Smell • Taste • Touch • Of all human senses, touch, especially as related to pain, temperature, and pressure, relates most directly to automatic, reflex-arc reactions. • Virtually all these sensations lead to responses initiated before the brain consciously begins to react.

10. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Sensing Effect of Culture on Sensing Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, and Larsen (2003) Experiment European Americans The original stimulus The absolute task 9 inches Japanese 3 inches The relative task

11. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Perceiving The Three-step Process • Selection • Organization • Interpretation

12. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Perceiving The Three-step Process • Selection Japanese/English Difficulties with Speech sound -Vowel length:obasan aunt obaasan grandmother -Double consonants:shita did shitta new -Accent:kaki oyster kaki persimmon -Pitch:hashi bridge hashi chopsticks hashi edge of a table

13. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Perceiving The Three-step Process • Organization English red orange yellow green blue purple Shona cicena cipsuka citema cipsuka Bassa ziza hui

14. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Perceiving The Three-step Process • Interpretation

15. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Barriers to Intercultural Communication LaRay M. Barna (1997): • Anxiety • Assuming similarity instead of difference • Ethnocentrism • Stereotypes and prejudice • Nonverbal misinterpretation • Language

16. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Barriers to Intercultural Communication LaRay M. Barna (1997): • Anxiety You are anxious because of not knowing what you are expected to do, it is only natural to focus on that feeling and not be totally present in the communication transaction.

17. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Barriers to Intercultural Communication LaRay M. Barna (1997): • Assuming similarity instead of difference When you assume similarity between cultures, you can be caught unaware of important differences.

18. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Barriers to Intercultural Communication LaRay M. Barna (1997): • Ethnocentrism Negatively judging aspects of another culture by the standards of one’s own culture.

19. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Barriers to Intercultural Communication LaRay M. Barna (1997): • Stereotype and prejudice The word stereotyping was first used by journalist Walter Lippmann in 1922 to describe judgments made about others on the basis of their ethnic group membership. When information is ambiguous, the brain often reaches the wrong conclusion.

20. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Barriers to Intercultural Communication LaRay M. Barna (1997): • Stereotype and prejudice We do not so much believe what we see as see what we believe. The brain overlooks what is doesn’t expect.

21. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE Barriers to Intercultural Communication LaRay M. Barna (1997): • Stereotype and prejudice Whereas stereotypes can be positive or negative, prejudice refers to the irrational dislike, suspicion, or hatred of a particular group, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

22. NM3413AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CULTURE References: Jandt, Fred E. An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010.