Chapter 6: Analyzing the Audience

Gauge Listeners’ Feelings toward the Topic, Speaker, and Occasion

With any speech, it’s important to assess the audience’s feelings and expectations toward (1) the topic of your speech, (2) you as the speaker, and (3) the speech occasion. This perspective-taking will help you anticipate listeners’ reactions and develop the speech accordingly.

Gauge Listeners’ Feelings toward the Topic

Consideration of the audience’s attitudes about and familiarity with a topic is key to offering a speech that will resonate with them (see Chapter 7). Is your topic one with which the audience is familiar, or is it new to them? Do your listeners hold positive, negative, or neutral attitudes toward the topic? That is, do they care a lot, a little, or not at all about your topic? As a general rule, people pay more attention to and feel more positively (e.g., hold more positive attitudes) about topics that are in line with their values and beliefs. The less we know about something, the more indifferent we tend to be. Once you gauge the audience’s knowledge level and attitudes toward the topic (using tools such as interviews and polls), consider these guidelines to present your topic at the appropriate level:

If the Topic Is New to Listeners

Start by showing why the topic is relevant to them.
Relate the topic to familiar issues and ideas about which they already hold positive attitudes.

If Listeners Know Relatively Little about the Topic

Stick to the basics and include background information.
Steer clear of jargon and define unclear terms.
Repeat important points, summarizing information often.

If Listeners Are Negatively Disposed toward the Topic

Focus on establishing rapport and credibility.
Don’t directly challenge listeners’ attitudes; instead begin with areas of agreement.
Discover if they have a negative bias in order to tactfully introduce the other side of the argument.
Offer solid evidence from sources they are likely to accept.
Give good reasons for developing a positive attitude toward the topic.⁷

If Listeners Hold Positive Attitudes toward the Topic

Stimulate the audience to feel even more strongly by emphasizing the side of the argument with which they already agree.
Tell stories with vivid language that reinforces listeners’ attitudes.⁸

If Listeners Are a Captive Audience

Motivate listeners to pay attention by focusing as much as possible on what is most relevant to them.
Pay close attention to the length of your speech.

Gauge Listeners’ Feelings toward the Speaker

How audience members feel about you will also have considerable bearing on their attentiveness and responsiveness to your message. A speaker who is well liked can gain at least an initial hearing by an audience even if listeners are unsure of what to expect from the message itself. Conversely, an audience that feels negatively toward the speaker will disregard even the most important or interesting message. We tend to put up barriers against people whom we hold in low regard.

Listeners have a natural need to identify with the speaker and to feel that he or she shares their perceptions,⁹ so look for ways to establish a common bond, or feeling of identification, between you and the audience. Sharing a personal story, emphasizing a shared role, and otherwise stressing mutual bonds all help to create identification. So, too, does the strategic use of inclusive language such as we, you, I, and me.

Many times, especially when the topic is controversial, a speaker will create identification by emphasizing those aspects of the topic about which the audience members are likely to agree. When speaking to an audience of abortion rights activists, for example, then-Senator Hillary Clinton called on opposing sides in the debate to find “common ground” by focusing on education and abstinence:

We should all be able to agree that we want every child born in this country and around the world to be wanted, cherished, and loved. The best way to get there is to do more to educate the public about reproductive health, about how to prevent unsafe and unwanted pregnancies.¹⁰

Clinton clearly was attempting to reach out beyond her core constituency and achieve some measure of identification with those who oppose abortion. Notice, too, how Clinton uses the personal pronoun we to encourage identification with the speech goal (see Chapter 16 for more on the power of inclusive language) and to build a sense of community within the audience. Even your physical presentation can foster identification. We’re more apt to identify with the speaker who dresses like us (or in a manner we aspire to) than with someone whose style and grooming seem strange or displeasing.

APPEAL TO AUDIENCE ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, AND VALUES

Have you . . .

Investigated audience members’ attitudes, beliefs, and values toward your topic?
Assessed the audience’s level of knowledge about the topic?
Considered strategies to address positive, negative, and neutral responses to your speech topic?
Considered appealing directly to audience members’ attitudes and values in your speech?

Gauge Listeners’ Feelings toward the Occasion

Depending on the circumstances calling for the speech, people will bring different sets of expectations and emotions to it. For example, members of a captive audience, who are required to hear the speaker, may be less positively disposed to the occasion than members of a voluntary audience who attend of their own free will. Imagine being a businessperson attending a conference—it’s your third night away from home, you’re tired from daylong meetings, and now you’re expected to listen to company executives explain routine production charges for the coming fiscal year. In contrast, imagine attending a speech of your own free will to listen to a speaker you’ve long admired. Whether planning a wedding toast or a business presentation, failure to anticipate and adjust for the audience’s expectations risks alienating them.