Chapter 7
Analyzing the Audience
By Boundless
The more you know and understand about the background of your audience and their needs, the better you can prepare your speech.
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Analyze the audience to find the mix of ages, genders, sexual orientations, educational levels, religions, cultures, ethnicities, and races.
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Use knowledge about your audience to step into their minds, create an imaginary scenario, and test your ideas.
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Since individuals of the same generation often share similar values, beliefs, and attitudes, age is an important variable to consider.
A speaker has an opportunity to address years of masculine and feminine gender role conditioning through the use of inclusive language.
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The sexual orientation of your audience members should be taken into account when giving a speech.
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Consider both the formal education and the self-directed learning of the members of your audience to adapt your speech content.
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Understanding the religions in your audience will help you relate to the members and avoid excluding members of differing religions.
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As society becomes more diverse, the speaker will find it useful to learn more about the cultures, races and ethnic groups in each audience.
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Audience members who belong to the same group are likely to share values, beliefs, and attitudes with other members of the group.
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Consider physical contexts—traditional face-to-face with co-located audience versus delivery via videoconference to remote audience(s).
Use psychographics of values, needs, attitudes, and beliefs to develop an audience profile and to tailor the speech's specific message.
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Examine favorability in relation to how the audience views both you and the topic for your speech.
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Consider the knowledegeabilty of your audience, prior to the speech, formative during the speech, and summative after the speech.
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Use direct observation of small audiences and use interviews, surveys and Likert rating scales to collect data about larger audiences.
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Apply knowledge about the audience to adjust the message before speaking. Observe and process audience responses to further adjust while speaking.