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Chapter 6
AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
To maintain the dialogical theme of the text, this chapter emphasizes the speaker’s view of the
audience and the audience’s view of the speaker. Effective speakers understand what motivates
audiences and adapt their messages accordingly. This chapter begins by identifying different
motivations that audiences bring to a speaking situation. Demographic analysis is discussed as one
tool for identifying those motivations. Next students learn how to develop a questionnaire that can be
used to generate an audience’s psychological profile. The effects of environmental variables, such as
time and environment, are then discussed. The chapter ends with the audience’s perception of the
speaker and the perception of speaker credibility.
Chapter Goals
At the end of this chapter, your students should be able to:
•
Describe various audience motivations
•
Tell how demographic audience analysis helps you adapt your topic to a particular audience
•
Assess your listeners’ psychological profile
•
Explain how the situation, including time and place, affect your audience
•
Analyze your audience’s perception of your credibility
Chapter Outline
I.
This chapter focuses on the audience’s motivations and perspectives on you and your topic.
A.
Knowing the audience’s motivations helps speakers adapt their strategies.
1.
Unmotivated audiences do not have a purposeful listening goal and are random.
2.
Passive audiences listen in order to accomplish other goals; speakers should select
interesting topics and relate them to listeners’ lives.
3.
Motivated audiences voluntarily and intentionally seek out an opportunity to hear a
particular speech – they are self-selected.
4.
Homogeneous audiences share an attitude—either positive or negative; with positive
audiences, speakers must develop their ideas clearly. Hostile audiences have
negative attitudes toward the speaker or the topic (see Chapter 17).
5.
With absent audiences, you are separate from your listeners who watch or listen
through some form of media, generally not in “real time.”
B.
Demographic audience analysis analyzes listeners according to the populations or
groups they represent; however, demographic factors are salient in different situations,
and demographic elements function together rather than separately.
1.
Ethnicity refers to one’s cultural tradition and heritage stemming from national and
religious origins.
2.
Race or racial categories are culturally constructed.
a.
Racial categories are not distinct and they are not genetically significant.
b.
Being racist assumes that people behave in certain ways because of racial
categories.
3.
Religious beliefs can be held loosely or intensely; wise speakers consider the range
and intensity of religious commitments in every speech.
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4.
Gender, not biological sex, is a cluster of traits culturally labeled as masculine,
feminine, or androgynous.
a.
Sexism assumes that someone will act a certain way because of one’s sex or
gender.
b.
Gender is salient at gender-exclusive events but is less important in other
contexts.
5.
Age influences listeners’ motivations and concerns.
a.
Demographers identify several general groups.
b.
An era’s history, culture, and technology offers each cohort different perspectives
and goals.
c.
7.
Socioeconomic status, education and occupation must be taken into consideration in
particular speaking situations.
8.
Group affiliation, affiliating with people that share their interests, experiences, or
hobbies, often matters; group identity is highly salient.
9.
Regional differences in the United States can influence audience interests, language,
political affiliation and perspectives.
C.
Analyzing the audience’s psychological profile, their beliefs, attitudes, values and
behaviors related to your subject helps speakers adapt to specific listeners.
1.
Using direct methods, including interviews, focus groups, or questionnaires, helps
speakers know what information the audience needs.
2.
Indirect methods include personal observations, and secondary sources.
3.
Questionnaires are one type of direct method to help you learn the audience’s
disposition to the topic. Knowing audience attitudes, the tendencies to have negative
or positive feelings about a topic, helps the speaker adapt.
a.
Scaled questions measure attitudes along a range or continuum from highly
positive to highly negative.
b.
Attitudes are made up of feelings, beliefs, and predispositions to act.
c.
A single audience generally includes people with a variety of attitudes.
3.
Values are standards used to judge good or bad, moral or immoral, beautiful or ugly,
and so on; they are measured across a range.
4.
Beliefs, values, actions, and attitudes are always interrelated.
D.
Speakers also need to assess the specific situation in which they speak.
1.
The time can affect the audience.
a.
The time of day the speech is scheduled has physical effects on the audience.
b.
The cultural time system makes some people watch the clock while others are
more relaxed about the length of the message.
c.
Also consider how cultural or social events might affect the audience response to
a topic.
2.
The environment—things like the size and color of the room, the temperature, outside
conditions, and noisy equipment—can all affect audience attention.
II.
The audience forms a perception of the speaker known as credibility, or believability.
A.
Prior credibility is what the speaker brings to the speech.
1.
This is the reputation or expertise the speaker brings with him– or herself.
2.
Most students lack prior credibility; they must find ways to develop credibility.
B.
Demonstrated
or
intrinsic credibility
comes in the speech itself.
1.
The speaker shows her knowledge and understanding of the topic.
2.
Poise and self-control are components of demonstrated credibility.
C.
Terminal credibility, the balance between the speaker’s prior reputation and her
demonstrated expertise, is flexible and open to change.
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Suggested Videos
1999 AFA-NIET After Dinner Speech. The “N-Word Speech.” (Available from the AFA-NIET
Tournament; the forensics coach at your school may have a copy.) In this award winning
presentation, Marlita Hill works masterfully with an audience that includes people who are
uncomfortable with her topic. Here’s an example where race or ethnicity is highly salient. Ask
students to note the specific ways she confronts listeners with their anxiety. How does the
audience react? How does the ethnicity of the listener matter? How does the ethnicity of the
speaker matter? Discuss their observations in class. (comprehension, application, analysis)
Discussion Topics
Audience Motivations (pp. 68-69) Introduce the subject by using Teaching Idea 6.1: “Kinds of
Audiences” in Supplemental Resources. (analysis)
Demographic Analysis (pp. 69-72) Use magazine ads as described in Teaching Idea 6.2
(Supplemental Resources) to help students articulate aspects of demographic analysis that ad
makers routinely use. (analysis, synthesis)
Psychological Profiles (p. 73) Demonstrate how to do a psychological profile by creating a
combination questionnaire of your own on a topic of particular interest to you. Ask students
to complete the questionnaires in class and then discuss the variety of responses. Ask how
speakers should use the information gained to guide their speech purpose and preparation.
(comprehension, application, synthesis)
Time and Public Speaking (pp. 75-76) One of my personal research emphases is chronemics, the
nonverbal time system. Consequently, I’m very interested in the cultural uses of time. Consider
presenting ideas from Research Note 6.1 in Supplemental Resources below. The case is reprinted
here:
Professor Brain consistently violates time norms. Sometimes she continues her lecture up to six
minutes after the class is scheduled to end. At other times, she’s late to class, then she shuffles
papers and talks to students so that she doesn’t actually start until about twenty minutes into the
class period. On occasion, she skips class entirely—with no note on the classroom door and no
explanation.
•
Would you stay when Prof Brain is late? Why or why not? How often would you stay?
How long? How would you feel?
•
How would you signal Professor Brain that her time is up and she should quit talking so that
you can get to your next class which is across campus?
•
What’s your response if you come to class (it’s your only class that day, and you made a real
effort to get there) and there’s no Brain and no message?
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•
Would it make a difference if you found out later that she had a doctor’s appointment that
she’d scheduled two weeks ago? What if she had an emergency flat tire on the way to work?
Would it make a difference if it were a sunny day and some students saw her out for a drive in
the country?
•
Are any of her behaviors grounds for some kind of administrative discipline? If so, what?
Why?
•
What end–of-the-course evaluation would you give her?
•
What can you learn from this that applies to time limits on classroom speeches? To speaking
on your scheduled day? To expectations in your future occupation?
Prior, Demonstrated or Intrinsic, and Terminal Credibility
(pp. 76–78) Ask students to give
actual examples of each type of credibility.
•
Prior credibility: have students name speakers who visit your city with prior
credibility. Discuss what gives the speaker prior credibility.
•
Demonstrated credibility: show a clip from C-SPAN and from a popular cooking
show. How is credibility demonstrated differently in each setting?
•
Terminal credibility: Use current and historical examples of people whose credibility
was hurt when the truth was discovered. For example, Rep. Anthony Weiner denied
sending inappropriate pictures to women via social media, which later proved to be
untrue. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford claimed to be hiking the
Appalachian Trail when in fact he was in Argentina with his mistress.
(comprehension, application)
Critical Thinking Exercises
(See pp. 79-80 of the textbook for Critical Thinking Exercises)
Application Exercises
(See p. 80 of the textbook for Application Exercises)
Internet Activities
You can access instructor’s resources at http://www.cengage.com/us/. You will need your instructor’s
access code. Students and instructors may also go to MindTap to find a broad range of resources that
will help students better understand the material in the chapter, complete assignments, and succeed
on tests. MindTap also features speech videos with critical viewing questions, speech outlines, and
transcripts.
Supplemental Resources
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•
Teaching Idea 6.1: Kinds of Audiences
•
Teaching Idea 6.2: Demographic Audience Analysis
•
Research Note 6.1: Relevance and Student Motivation
•
Research Note 6.2: Cultural Time Differences
Teaching Idea 6.1. Audience Motivations
Purpose: To understand the motivations of various audiences.
Procedure: Begin by having students describe a specific audience they’ve been part of. Elicit
responses until you have several examples for each category found in the text. List these on the board
as they are given. (You may have to provide hints for pedestrian audiences or absent audiences.)
After students have named several audiences, display a list of the six audience types. Then, use one
of the ideas listed below:
•
In a whole group discussion, have students match the list of audiences on the board to the list on
the transparency. Throughout, teach the characteristics of each type of audience.
•
Divide the class into six small groups, have class members use their text to identify characteristics
of the audience they have been assigned, then match audiences listed on the board to their
category. (If there are only a few in a given category, have students add to the list.) Have a
spokesperson from each group share information with the rest of the class.
Teaching Idea 6.2 Demographic Audience Analysis
Purpose: To help students identify demographic considerations that affect the way a message is
presented.
Procedure: Begin the lesson by displaying two different ads for a similar product. (Example: dog
food ads—one from Better Homes and Gardens and one from Field and Stream.) Ask students to identify
the magazines in which the ads appeared. Lead them to see that the demographic characteristics of
the target audience resulted in two very different ads with essentially the same message—”buy dog
food.”
Then have them work in pairs to complete the following task:
•
Before class, mount ads from 14-17 magazines on construction paper or some other backing.
Choose ads targeted to a specific audience from a wide variety of magazines—those targeted
to bodybuilders, families, dog fanciers, music lovers, artists, Christians, nurses, etc. Include
magazines such as Time, Discover (science), Working Woman, Modern Maturity, Ebony, and
Psychology Today. For example, a Hitachi ad in Discover magazine shows a robot; the same
product in Rolling Stone might feature a sophisticated piece of playback equipment.
•
Number the ads, and place them in various locations throughout the room.
•
List the titles of the magazines on a separate handout. Provide a blank beside each name for
students to match the number on the ad to the correct periodical.
•
Give one handout to every two persons requiring them to work in pairs to do the matching.
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•
Direct them to discuss between themselves how the topic and details in the ad have been
chosen specifically for the target audience.
•
Have them get out of their seats, walk around the room, and fill in all the blanks. They do not
have to work in order.
•
Then go over the ads together. Discuss how audience interests help determine what ad goes
into each magazine. Link this to topic selection in public speaking. Speakers choose topics
that are linked to the interests of their audiences.
•
Discuss how marketers specifically design details in their ads to account for demographic
variables. For instance, an airline ad in Modern Maturity shows senior citizens; one in Ebony
features African Americans. Help them see that, even with the same topic, ads differ in
details. Relate this to public speaking in which speakers select specific details depending on
their audience’s beliefs and values.
Research Note 6.1. Relevance and Student Motivation
According to the classifications in the text, students are mostly passive audience members. A few
may be in the course because of your reputation as a terrific teacher or because they love public
speaking, and they’re anxious to learn more about the subject. Most, however, take the course to meet
other goals—to get the credit, to graduate. The major challenge with passive audiences is to make the
material interesting and relevant.
Focusing on the student question, “What’s in it for me?” Frymier & Shulman (1995) explored the link
between relevance and motivation to study. They found a moderate, positive correlation. Instructors
whose examples came from student experiences, personal experiences, and current events increased
relevance for students. Other strategies that helped maintain student attention and resulted in greater
overall course satisfaction included links to other content areas, career-related assignments, and
explicit statements that helped students understand the importance of the content and recognize how
public speaking related to their career goals.
Source: Frymier, A. B. & Shulman, G. M. (1995). “What’s in it for me?”: Increasing relevance to
enhance motivation. Communication Education, 44, 40-50.
Research Note 6.2. Cultural Time Differences
Robert Levine’s recent book, A Geography of Time: The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist, or
How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently, describes temporal variations among cultural
groups globally. Researchers in cities worldwide measured the accuracy of clocks, the time it took
pedestrians to walk 60 feet downtown, and the length of time a postal worker took to sell a stamp.
Faster paced U.S. cities included Boston, Buffalo, and New York; the slowest were Shreveport,
Sacramento, and Los Angeles. The four fastest moving countries were Switzerland, Ireland,
Germany, and Japan with El Salvador, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico the slowest paced.
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Levine says that much of the world lives on “event time” illustrated by Burundi where people
agree to meet when the cows return from the watering hole. A Madagascar resident might tell you
that you can walk to the nearest market in “the time it takes to cook rice.”
In contrast, people who plan their lives around the clock often seem obsessed with or addicted to
temporal precision. In the West, for instance, we’ve developed an atomic clock that is predicted to be
accurate, almost to the second, a million years from now.
The world seems to be moving toward clock time, although a culture’s temporal rhythms are
deeply embedded. For instance, revolutionaries have tried to change cultural time norms—usually
unsuccessfully. French Revolutionists imposed a rational, secular calendar, based on the number ten
and stripped of religious significance such as saints’ days. They reorganized time into three ten-day
weeks per month and divided the day into just ten periods rather than the traditional twenty-four.
This reform lasted thirteen years.
Calendars are another way to keep time, and a commitment to diversity means we are aware that
some students are straddling two calendar systems. For example, when I lived in New York City, my
Muslim neighbors fasted during the month of Ramadan; some Jewish residents built temporary
shelters outside their homes to celebrate Sukkot (Tabernacles) in the month of Tishri (roughly mid-
September-October). In Oregon, Russian Old Believers immigrants use the Julian calendar that differs
from the Gregorian calendar by thirteen days.