Chapter 5 The Audience Sociological Analysis And Adaptation
Your first step in audience analysis is to construct an audience profile in which you analyze the sociological or demographic characteristics of your audience. The characteristics help you to estimate the attitudes and beliefs of your audience.
Attitudes and beliefs
Attitude refers to your tendency to act for or against a person, object or position. If you have a positive attitude toward the death penalty, you are likely to argue or act in favor of instituting the death penalty.
Belief refers t the confidence or conviction you have in the existence or truth of some proposition. For example, you may believe that there is an afterlife that education is the best way to rai from poverty, that democracy is the best form of government, or that all people are born equal. As you can readily e from this example of the death penalty, the attitudes and beliefs that your listeners have will influence how receptive they will be to your topic.
Seeking audience information
The most effective way to learn about your audience’s attitudes and beliefs is to analyze the audience’s demographic or sociological characteristics. You can ek our audience information using a variety of methods.
Obrve: how do they dress? Can you infer their possible economic status from their clothing and jewelry? Might their clothing reveal any conrvative or liberal leanings?
Collect data systematically. U a questionnaire to collect information before your speech. Let’s say you took a cour in desktop publishing and were thinking about giving an informative speech on the nature of desktop publishing. One thing you would need to know is whom much your audience already knows. This will help you judge the level at which to approach the topic, information that you can assume, terms you need to define and so on.
Audience questionnaire are even more uful as background for your persuasive speech
es. Let’s say you plan to give a speech in favor of allowing single people to adopt children. To develop an effective speech, you need to know your audience’s attitudes toward single parent adoption.
Interview a few members of your intended audience.
In a classroom situation, this is easily accomplished. If you are to speak with an audience you will not meet prior to your speech, you might interview tho who know the audience members better than you. For example, you might talk with the person who invited you to speak.
If you do survey your audience – with a questionnaire or by interview – be sure to mention this in your speech. It will alert your listeners to your thoroughness and your concern for them. It will also satisfy their curiosity since most people will be interested in how others responded.
I want to thank you all for completing my questionnaire on single-parent adoption. Half of
you were neutral; 30 percent were in favor, and 20 percent were oppod. The major reason in favor of single-parent adoption was that it would provide homes for an enormous number of children who would otherwi not be adopted. The major reason against such adoption was the belief that a child needs two parents to grow up emotionally healthy. Let’s look more carefully at each of the reasons.
There are characteristics that em to be more common among one group than another. U them to stimulate your thinking about your specific and unique audience.
Age:
Different age groups have different attitudes and beliefs simply becau they have had different experiences. Take the differences into consideration in preparing your speeches.
‘I want to talk with you about investing for your future. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking to yourlf. Our future is now. You’re thinking that you need more income now, not in the future.’
‘I want to talk with you about investing for your future. In 20 years – years that will pass very quickly – many of you will be retiring. You quickly will learn that your company pension plan will prove woefully inadequate. Social curity will be equally inadequate. With only the sources of income, you will have to lower your standard of living drastically.’
Here are some questions about age that you might find helpful in analyzing and adapting to your audience.
Do the age groups differ in the goals, interests and day-to-day concerns that may be related to your topic and purpo?
Do the groups differ in their ability to absorb and process information? Will they differ in their respons to visual cues?
