By thinking about how her topic would connect with her audience, Paolina was using audience analysis—a process of identifying important characteristics about audience members, and using this information to prepare a speech.

Audience analysis fulfills three purposes. First, the more you analyze your audience, the better you can adapt your topic to their needs and interests. This is why Paolina’s speech on breast cancer awareness addressed men as well as women.

Second, analyzing your audience helps you relate supporting materials and factual details to your audience’s lives and viewpoints. For example, using statistics on local breast cancer rates (as opposed to national or global rates) can make the issue seem more real to listeners.

Third, audience analysis helps shape your nonverbal delivery and language style. Consider how a medical doctor speaking to breast cancer patients about treatment options would use a different manner and vocabulary than when she’s explaining the same thing to medical students.

To better understand your audience, you can explore several factors, including demographics; attitudes, beliefs, and values; knowledge; and type.

Audience Demographics. Your listeners’ demographics include their age, sex, education level, group memberships (religious or political associations), socioeconomic status, family status (single, married, divorced, partnered, with or without children), and cultural background. Depending on your speech topic, some demographic characteristics of your audience will be more relevant than others. For example, imagine that you represent a nonprofit agency and speak frequently to local community groups. The ages and socioeconomic status of your listeners will be important factors to consider as you prepare each speech. College students on a budget may be more interested in learning about volunteering for your agency than donating money, so your speeches to campus clubs would emphasize such opportunities. On the other hand, local business professionals may be willing to donate both service and financial support. You would adjust your speeches to them accordingly.

Although it’s important to take your listeners’ demographic characteristics into account when preparing your speech, there are some things you need to consider. As Chapters 2 and 4 describe, people often engage in stereotyping—categorizing people into a social group and then forming impressions about them based on information they possess about the group. When conducting your audience analysis, recognize that stereotypes based on demographic characteristics—such as age and sex—can be flawed. For example, Paolina didn’t stereotype all the men in her class as being disinterested in the issue. Instead, she found ways to broaden the focus of a “women’s health issue” to include the men in her audience. Demographics are best used to develop a sense of possible shared characteristics among your audience that may reflect on their knowledge or interest in your topic. But be careful not to overgeneralize about your audience because each listener possesses unique attitudes, beliefs, and values that may shape how he or she reacts to your speech.

Audience Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values. Your listeners are not just a collection of demographics; each one also interprets your speech through his or her sense of self. This self-concept—or who each perceives him- or herself to be—influences how individual audience members will respond to your message. As Chapter 2 explains, self-concept is based on the attitudes, beliefs, and values you have about yourself. An attitude is an evaluation that makes a person respond favorably or unfavorably toward an issue, a situation, or a person. If your friend says, “I love Mexican food,” he is expressing an attitude.

A belief is a conviction regarding what is true and untrue. People develop their beliefs from many sources, including their family, religious or community authorities, education, and life experiences. “There is absolutely life on other planets” is a belief.

Strongly held beliefs that guide our behaviors are known as values. How people answer the question, What’s important to me? reveals their values. Is it family? equal rights for all people? money? Values are strongly shaped by culture—for example, valuing individual freedoms (individualistic cultures) over group concerns (collectivistic cultures), or vice versa.

By understanding your audience’s attitudes, beliefs, and values, you can better adapt your speech topic to connect with them. If you are dealing with controversial social issues, such as gun laws, urban poverty, or environmental racism, you’ll need to demonstrate respect for your audience’s attitudes, beliefs, and values regarding your topic, as these may vary from your own. Even when you take a strong stand on a contentious topic, you will need to present your ideas in a way that is civil, is ethical, and doesn’t degrade others. You can do this by acknowledging your audience members’ views and explaining why you want to present your topic from a particular perspective. For more ideas on accounting for your audiences’ attitudes, beliefs, and values, see the Making Communication Choices: Speaking Your Mind box on pages 330–331.

Audience Knowledge. Another part of your audience analysis is to consider your listeners’ existing level of knowledge about your speech topic. You can make educated guesses about how much your audience members already know or what kind of information they need by reflecting on their demographics (age, education) and their attitudes, beliefs, and values. So although a class of college students will likely know a lot about Twitter or Snapchat, a group of senior citizens may be less likely to know about such technologies.

When possible, directly poll your audience while preparing your speech to gauge their knowledge, and adapt your presentation accordingly. Let’s say you have video production experience and want to talk about editing video. From an informal poll of your class, you discover that most of your classmates shoot short videos but have no editing experience. This tells you that you’ll need to explain and define basic video editing terminology in your speech.

Audience Type. Audiences come in various types. Sometimes you’ll be addressing a captive audience, meaning that your listeners are required to attend the presentation. Your class is a captive audience because students enrolled in the course have to listen to one another’s speeches. Think about how you feel when you’re required to listen to something versus choosing to listen. In general, being forced to listen to a presentation makes you less receptive to its message. So when you’re addressing a captive audience, give listeners a reason to pay attention by explaining early in the presentation how they’ll benefit from the information you’re providing.

In contrast, a voluntary audience attends out of self-interest or to fulfill some personal need. These individuals are motivated to listen and may already have some knowledge about your topic. Suppose you go to a tile-laying demonstration at your local home-improvement store because you want to tile your patio. The person conducting the demonstration doesn’t need to discuss the benefits of laying your own tile. You’re already aware of those benefits; that’s why you’re there!