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2: Audience Analysis and Listening

  • Page ID
    17739
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    Learning Objectives

    After reading this chapter, the student will be able to:

    • Define audience-centered, audience analysis, and demographic characteristics;
    • List and explain the various demographic characteristics used to analyze an audience;
    • Define the meanings of attitudes, beliefs, values, and needs;
    • Diagram Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and explain its usefulness to public speaking;
    • Describe contextual factors that should be considered when preparing a speech;
    • Describe typical barriers to listening in public speaking situations;
    • Explain ways an individual can improve his/her listening when in an audience; and
    • Apply what he/she knows about listening to improve personal preparation of a speech.

    This chapter has looks at the psychological and physical processes going on inside the audience during a speech. Being audience-centered and adapting to your audience involves knowing as much as is reasonably possible about them. Addressing a diverse audience is a challenge, and audiences are, in general, becoming more diverse and more aware of their diversity in the U.S. While diversity is a challenge, it is also an opportunity


    This page titled 2: Audience Analysis and Listening is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Kris Barton & Barbara G. Tucker (GALILEO Open Learning Materials) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.