5.6: Conclusion and Exercises

Conclusion

This chapter highlights the significance of audience analysis in public speaking, emphasizing the understanding of diverse audience needs and perspectives for effective communication. It stresses the importance of tailoring messages to avoid stereotypes and ensure ethical language, fostering engagement and comprehension. Sincere and respectful interactions build credibility and rapport, allowing speakers to connect meaningfully.

We explored the importance of audience analysis in effective speech-making, focusing on their psychographic characteristics—beliefs, attitudes, values, and needs. This chapter emphasizes understanding audience dynamics, social affiliations, and motivations while also acknowledging the limitations of such analysis.

We provided methods for audience analysis, highlighting the significance of understanding the audience for effective communication. Techniques discussed include direct observation, interviews, surveys, and focus groups, with guidelines for enhancing clarity and relevance. It stresses the value of nonverbal behavior observation and the importance of structured questions while addressing potential biases like socially desirable responding to improve information accuracy.

The importance of thorough audience analysis for effective communication in various fields like politics and business was discussed. It enables speakers to tailor content to specific interests, engage listeners, and adapt during speeches based on audience dynamics and settings. Key strategies include avoiding unfamiliar idioms, monitoring feedback, and adjusting presentations for clarity and effectiveness.

Exercises

1. Brainstorm a list of topics for an informative or persuasive speech. By yourself or with a partner, identify the kinds of information you need about your audience in order to make ethical decisions about how you approach the speech.
2. Make a list of values or opinions you have that might not conform to popular views. Why might these be important for a speaker to know before attempting to inform or persuade you?
3. Pretend you have been asked to give a speech about environmental conservation in the United States. What audience beliefs, attitudes, values, concerns, and other variables should you consider?
4. List the voluntary (political party, campus organization, etc.) and involuntary (age, race, sex, etc.) groups to which you belong. After each group, write a sentence or phrase about how that group influences your experience as a student.
5. In a short paragraph, define the term “fairness.” Compare your definition with someone else’s definition. What factors do you think contributed to differences in definition?
6. With a partner, identify an instance when you observed a speaker give a poor speech due to failing to analyze the situation. What steps could the speaker have taken to more effectively analyze the situation?
7. Write a coherent set of four clear questions about a given issue, such as campus library services, campus computer centers, or the process of course registration. Make your questions concrete and specific in order to address the information you seek. Do not allow opportunities for your respondent to change the subject. Test out your questions on a classmate.
8. Write a set of six questions about public speaking anxiety to be answered on a Likert-type scale (strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree).
9. Create a seven-question set designed to discover your audience’s attitudes about your speech topic. Have a partner evaluate your questions for clarity, respect for audience privacy, and relevance to your topic.
10. Choose a topic. Then write a different concrete thesis statement for each of six different audiences: students, military veterans, taxpayers, registered nurses, crime victims, and professional athletes, for instance.
11. Think of a controversial topic and list all the various perspectives about it that you can think of or discover. If people of various perspectives were in your audience, how might you acknowledge them during your introduction?