Public Speaking Chapter Five

Supporting Materials:
- Research is good for scientific conferences
- Personal stories are good for peers or children
Analyzing the Audience:
- Demographics
o Size, age range, educational level, heterogeneity
- Cultures
o Interests, beliefs, values, prior understanding, and common knowledge
- Psychology
o Selectivity to attention and perception
Audience Demographics:
- Size
o Bigger Audience= more formal, Smaller= less formal
- Age Range
- Education Level
- Heterogeneity
o Bigger Audience= more heterogeneity, Smaller= more noticeable similarities
o More heterogeneity means a wider variety of examples are needed
o Goal is to be meaningful to diverse audiences and avoid platitudes
Heterogeneity: variety or diversity among audience members, dissimilarity
Platitudes: buzzwords or phrases that are devoid of specific content
- Is the audience captive or voluntary?
o Assume the audience is captive if unsure
Captive Listeners: people who did not voluntarily see the speaker and who may not be
interested in the material
- Generalize the audience but don’t stereotype them
Stereotyping: assuming that all members of a demographic category are alike in all respects
- Social media provides additional benefits and constraints
o Reaches vast audience
o Have prior interests and understanding
o Good or bad ethos of the website
o Difficult to analyze audience
o Prior interest means less open to new perspectives
Audience Cultures:
- Cultural diversity
o Controversial topics can be brought up but should presented with sensitivity to
other cultures and religions
o People commonly assume that everyone shares their cultural values (egocentrism)
Egocentrism: the inability to differentiate between self and other
o Attitudes toward the role of women vary widely
§ There is not standard or correct job for men or women
o Not everyone in every culture can speak in public
§ African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Women
o Precise wording can be important as to not offend anyone
o Regionally people have different speaking styles and cultures
 § South v North
§ Coast v Landlocked
§ City v Rural
§ Primarily White v Diverse Cities
o Negative stereotypes
§ Draw examples from many cultures
§ Emphasize your own beliefs
§ Resist culture specific references
Audience Cultures: subjective factors that characterize a particular audience and make its
situation distinct
- Self-Interests
o Listeners reject messages that go against their self interest
o They will accept a message if it tells them that short term sacrifices bring long
term benefits
Self-Interests: personal gain or loss resulting from an action or policy
- Personal Interests
o How likely is it that your topic will interest others?
o If there is low interest in your topic you may need to deliberately plan to capture
their attention
o Frame the speech based on the level of interest from the audience
Personal Interests: what an individual regards as interesting or important
- Beliefs and Values
o Persuasive speeches can…
§ Reinforce beliefs and values
§ Change values but maintain beliefs
§ Change beliefs and provide values
Beliefs: statements that listeners regard as true
Values: positive or negative judgements that listeners apply to a person, place, object, event or
ideas
- Prior understanding
o Don’t overestimate what you think the people should know
o Do not be condescending and underestimate what the people know
Condescending: talking down to an audience assuming that listeners are not capable of thinking
about a subject and reading their own conclusions
- Common knowledge
o Speakers use allusions to help get their point across
o Allusions can be taken from the Bible, books, TV shows, movies or other areas
that are assumed to be common knowledge for the audience
o Can assume people have knowledge of something based on what role they have in
society or what reference groups they are in
Allusions: brief references to something with which the audience is assumed to be familiar
Roles: socially assigned positions such as parent, students, or employee
Reference Groups: groups with which listeners identify, regardless of whether they belong to
them, they serve as guides or models for behavior
Audience Psychology:
- Selectivity to attention and perception
Selective Exposure: a tendency to expose oneself to messages that are important personally and
are consistent with current beliefs
Selective Attention: conscious or unconscious choice about whether or not to focus intently on a
speech, absorb and process its contents, and take it seriously
- Motivate the audience in three ways…
o Make the message personally important
§ Make it clear how the message relates to them personally
§ Announce explicitly that the listeners will benefit from your speech
o Make the message stand out
§ Make the message different than what is expected
§ Use changes in pitch, volume, or rate during the speech
§ Avoid gimmicks
o Make the message easy to follow
§ Strategic organization of the thesis and overall argument
§ State main ideas clearly for easy identification
§ Speak at a rate that keeps the audience’s interest
§ Repeat main ideas and key points
§ Use pauses as transitions and emphasis
§ Summarize thesis and main ideas memorably
Perception: the interpretation or understanding given to a speech, the meaning it has for a
listener
- Perception is selective
o Listeners accept patterns because they believe their experiences are structured,
stable, and meaningful
o They think all events have causes and often seek a single cause to explain
complex events
o They view individuals as responsible for their actions and that actions reflect a
person’s intentions
o They view others as very similar to themselves
o They perceive messages within the framework of familiar categories
o They interpret things in the way that their reference groups do
- Selective exposure, attention, and perception are characteristics of almost all listeners
Strategies for Analysis:
- Formal Methods
o Market research
o Surveys
o Focus groups
- Informal Methods
o Listening to introductory speeches
o Asking the host or moderator questions prior to the speech
o Look at the demographic composition
o Talk to other speakers who have spoken to a similar audience
o Read newspapers and magazines that the listeners are likely to have read
o Do library or online research
o Use direct observation
Audience Perceptions:
 - Determine similarities and differences between you and the audience with respect to
demographics, cultures, and psychology
- To modify perceptions:
o Use wording that helps build a sense of community
o Be careful not to assume that your beliefs are universal
o Consider your role models and the audience’s role models
- How listeners perceive your ethos will affect their opinions of the speech
Universal Audience: an imaginary audience made up of all reasonable people
Pandering: saying whatever will please an audience even if it is not what the speaker believes