Public Speaking Textbook - Chapter 2: Audience Analysis

Chapter 2 Exploring Public Speaking, 4th edition Open Resource Textbook for Basic Public Speaking Course Authors: Faculty of Dalton State College, Dalton, Georgia Overview of Chapter  Why Audience Analysis?  Demographic Characteristics  Psychographic Characteristics  Contextual Factors of...

Chapter 2 Exploring Public Speaking, 4th edition Open Resource Textbook for Basic Public Speaking Course Authors: Faculty of Dalton State College, Dalton, Georgia Overview of Chapter  Why Audience Analysis?  Demographic Characteristics  Psychographic Characteristics  Contextual Factors of Audience Analysis  Listening in Public Speaking Why Audience Analysis?  Public speaking involves content and relationship.  Relationship depends on knowing your audience through analysis of  Demographic characteristics  Psychographic characteristics  Contextual characteristics Demographic Characteristics  “Describing the people (demo-)”  Not all demographics important for every speech situation Demographic Characteristics  Perceive them in a positive and negative sense  What to appeal to  What to avoid  Not for stereotyping or totalizing  Stereotyping: overgeneralizing about members of a group  Totalizing: one characteristic of a person defines them totally Demographic Characteristics  Age  Education  Gender  Socio-economic level  Race, Ethnicity, Culture  Sexual orientation  Religion  Family Status  Group Affiliation  COMMON BOND  Region  LEVEL OF HETEROGENEITY/HOMO  Occupation GENEITY Psychographic Characteristics  Beliefs  Attitudes  Values  Needs Beliefs  “what we hold to be true”  Hard but not impossible to change  Come from experience and authority  Traits of  Stability  Centrality  Saliency  strength Attitude  “stable, positive or negative response to a person, idea, object, or policy”  Not same as mood or emotion  Most direct link to behavior  Attributed to many sources Values  “goals we strive for and what we consider important and desirable”  Not same as wants  Not same as physical objects Needs  “important deficiencies we are motivated to fill”  Maslow’s hierarchy commonly used to describe how needs operate in communication, organization, education, etc.  Lower level must be met and satisfied before the next level up is “felt” Wikimedia commons  Contextual Factors in Public Speaking  Time  Amount allotted for the speech  Time of day speech is given  Why is the audience gathered?  What is the physical space like?  How large is the audience?  What are audience expectations? Why are you speaking to them? Listening  Hearing: “the physical process by which sound waves hit the ear drums and send a message to the brain” vs  Listening: “an active process where one is specifically making an effort to understand, process, and retain information”  Types of listening  Comprehensive: understanding and remembering important information  Empathetic: understanding feelings and motivations with a goal of helping; relational  Appreciative: artistic pieces; benefit from knowing the patterns and concepts in the art  Critical: evaluating quality of evidence and arguments  Your Audience and Listening  Definition: deliberate repeating of structural aspects of speech  Planned redundancy helps a speaker and audience, using  A clear central idea statement  Preview of the main points  Connective statements  Overall summary in the conclusion Barriers to Listening  Neuroplasticity has changed our ability/willingness to process long speeches  Noisiness and constant electronic distractions of our lives  We can process faster than speakers can talk  Stimuli around you (smells, talking, laptops)  Going into listening with no purpose, no preparation  Prejudices and preconceptions; confirmation bias Ways to Improve Your Listening  Believe that improving your listening matters  Come prepared  Aware of your preconceptions/confirmation bias  Put up devices  Take notes intentionally and intelligently  Not every word  On paper is better than laptop  Write questions for later; avoid side conversations