Audience beliefs (the facts about your topic that they consider to be true) will have a significant effect on their attitude (their favorable or unfavorable feeling) toward your thesis. For example, think back to the opener for Chapter 16 regarding flu prevention. Suppose you want to convince the students in your speech class to get a flu shot. Audience members might believe that the flu affects mostly senior citizens and that the effects of the flu are not serious for younger people. If listeners do not believe that their risk from the flu is serious, their attitude toward your proposal is likely to be negative. To persuade audience members that they need to act, you could present credible evidence to show that the risk from the flu is significant for college students and that the flu can seriously affect their ability to study and work.20

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