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CHAPTER 3 UNDERSTANDING AUDIENCES AND PUBLICS
CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY
Chapter 3 provides students with a way of thinking about audiences and the ways they might interact
with a specific audience as part of a broader public conversation. The chapter defines and explains the
uses and limitations of both literal and rhetorical audience analysis. The differences between
marketing and engagement approaches to communication are described as well as the goal of
situating the audience in the context of broader public conversations. Resources for effective audience
adaptation are identified.
CHAPTER 3 OUTLINE
I. Introduction: Those people sitting in front of you
A. Connecting with audience requires skills
1. Audience analysis: make-up, motivations, susceptibility
1. Influence how audience thinks about topic
D. Goals of speech for specific audience
1. Constrained by public speaking as part of larger conversation
2. Should move public conversation forward
II. Audience analysis
A. Beliefs, values, motivations, experiences
1. General tendencies of audience (who, what, where, when, why)
III. The literal audience: demographics
A. Series of educated guesses about literal audience commonalities
1. Based on demographic knowledge or assumptions
2. Demographics = standard categories and classifications
3. Rough picture of essential audience characteristics
a. Age
b. Gender
c. Race
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g. Sexual orientation
h. Education levelOccupation
j. Income
a. Do not assume demographics = what audience thinks or values
b. Problems with demographic approach
i. Incomplete or inaccurate information
1. Stereotypes = undependable way to assess a person’s beliefs or
commitments
ii. Exclusion
c. Use demographic information as starting point
i. Use differences to find commonalities
k. The rhetorical audience
a. Skill in designing speech = more receptive audience
i. Address in way to create relationship (“us”)
ii. Address and bring into being an unexpected role
iii. Invite audience to relate to topic through your lens
b. “As” test
i. Tool for addressing specific audience role to change perspective on topic
1. For example, “as” a friend, store clerk, teacher
ii. Role or perspective to help audience
1. Relate to topic
2. Forge commonalities despite differences
iii. Rhetorical role influences speaker choices
iv. Limits
1. Roles audience is willing to assume
c. From “me” to “us”
1. Informative speeches = relevance to interests
2. Persuasive speeches = action consistent with interests
b. Sympathetic audiences
i. Already see interests aligned with yours
c. Apathetic audiences
i. Don’t care about topic because don’t know should care
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1. Legitimate activity
2. Different assumptions than public speaking
ii. One-way interaction
iii. Demographic segments
iv. Stereotypes
v. Means to end (a sale)
b. Engagement
i. Integral part of democratic institutions
ii. Framework for organizational and small group settings
iii. Two-way process
ii. Speaker job = create and address concerned public
iii. Broader than community
1. Common location
2. Common institution
b. Advancing public conversation
i. Dialogue with group
1. Reasonable, interested, and engaged partners
ii. Value and fairly evaluate relevant positions
b. Information circulation (Remix)
c. Speaker responsibility for world created by choices/words
i. Manipulative
ii. Deceptive
iii. Self-serving
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d. Public speaker makes difference
i. Give information
ii. Change opinions
iii. Change history
iv. Must use powerful tool responsibly
e. Two tests for responsible choices (specific and broader audiences)
i. Create benefit for everyone
ii. Responsible/adapt to audience and context
f. Specific audience questions
i. Best way to cultivate relationship
READING TARGET FOR CHAPTER 3
This is the instructor-assigned goal for students to consider in their writing, discussion, and individual
reflections:
Read the chapter in order to explain how and why the audience is an integral part of public
speaking.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR CHAPTER 3
General strategies and techniques
Use the Questions for Review and Questions for Discussion at the end of Chapter 3 as prompts
for writing or discussion (in class, online, before and after class).
Use the Try It activities in the chapter as the basis for points of discussion, in-class activities, or
assigned work outside of class.
Chapter learning objective: Differentiate types of audiences
Select a TEDX speech from a public TEDX event (not in a college setting) with an interesting
theme. As a class, watch the speech together and attempt to answer the following questions
about the audience:
Who is in the audience?
What opinions might the audience already have about the topic?
How might the occasion influence your audience members’ interest and dispositions?
Why might this audience be interested in the topic?
Chapter learning objective: Analyze how the identity of the audience influences
your choices, and explain how your choices influence the identity of the audience
Audience analysis in class. For topics that students have selected or may select for a class
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assignment, assign the following questions for students to answer in writing to identify general
tendencies. After they answer the questions, have them check their answers in small groups.
Does a small subset of the audience agree with the analysis conducted so far?
▪ Who is in the audience?
▪ What opinions might the audience already have about your topic?
▪ Where and when are you addressing the audience? What is the context for the
presentation, and how might the context influence the interaction?
▪ Why would your audience be interested in your topic? How does the topic intersect with
their interests and concerns?
Avoiding stereotyping. Help students beat the weakness of stereotyping an audience based on
presentation. What can a speaker do to help the audience view the problem (sleep deprivation)
through the lens of the rhetorical audience of overworked stressed-out students?
Chapter learning objective: Distinguish between the literal audience and the
rhetorical audience
Your “as” audience membership. Ask students to write in a short amount of time (4 to 5 minutes)
a list of as many “as” audiences as possible to which they belong. Have people share in small
groups and then as a whole class to generate a long list of possible rhetorical audiences that a
topic could address.
Identify the “as” audience. Select a topic for the entire class, and assign a different “as” audience
audience about a proposed piece of legislation.
Chapter learning objective: Explain the distinction between marketing and
engagement as approaches to the audience
Same topic, two approaches. Generate a list of sample topics, such as persuading your family or
significant other to buy another car, asking a friend for a favor, or discussing an upcoming
election. Ask students (in small groups or individually) to select one topic from the list and then
develop a marketing approach and an engaged approach to presenting the same topic.
Same topic, two approaches by two groups. Select one topic for the entire class that students
are familiar with and might know some supporting evidence. A personal topic can work as well,
such as asking a roommate to clean up after himself or herself. Divide the class into two groups.
Tell one group to create a short “marketing” presentation on that topic and the other group to
create a short “engagement” presentation on the topic. After each group makes a presentation,
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generate a list of similarities and differences.
Try It (marketing vs. engagement). Ask students to select an issue that is important to them and
to write a short comparison about how they would approach an audience if they were
marketing to that audience and how they would approach an audience if they were engaging
that audience.
Chapter learning objective: Explain how your interaction with an audience fits
the broader context of the public and democratic conversation
Try It (meaningful input). Tell students to write or share at least three factors that limit an average
citizen’s involvement in local and national dialogues. Generate the list as a class. Then ask students to
identify which barriers affect the individual student most directly.
Public dialogue participation. Ask students to share a time when they contributed to a local or
national dialogue on a topic. If no one has done so, brainstorm ways that they might (e.g.,
For that topic, ask students to identify large-scale (national) issues related to the topic. (You are
asking them to make their topic broader, to find where it fits in a larger context. This approach
can provide a useful perspective for finding support material.) For example, if a student is
interested in high school grade inflation and its influence on college success, the larger issues
could be higher education outcomes, K-12 education reform, teacher ethics and workload, and
unintended consequences of applying a consumer-business model to education.
MINDTAP AND CENGAGE RESOURCES
Chapter 3 support materials in MindTap include the following:
GLOSSARY OF TERMS IN CHAPTER 3
“As” test: invite your audience to see your topic “as” or in a specific role, relating to your topic through
a lens you create
Audience adaptation: write, frame, and deliver the speech in a manner that responds to your analysis
of the audience
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Audience analysis: thinking about the beliefs, values, experiences, and motivations of your
audience
Marketing approach to communication: convincing an audience based on their already existing
beliefs and motivations
Public: a group of people who have a common set of interests because they perceive a shared problem
Rhetorical audience: what the literal audience can become when you convince the members to think or act
differently
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