Considering Audience Demographics
Considering Audience Demographics
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Although understanding audience expectations and situational factors is an important component of audience analysis, it is only one of the important steps. You should also examine your audience’s demographics. Demographics is the systematic study of the quantifiable characteristics of a large group. An audience analysis might focus on co-cultural statistics such as gender, socioeconomic status (including income, occupation, and education), religious and political affiliation, family status (married, single, divorced, partnered, with children, without children), age, and ethnic background. Other statistics that might be relevant include student enrollment status (full-time or part-time), student residential status (on campus or off campus), major area of study, or the geographical regions students hail from.
Understanding such statistics can lead speakers to topics that will be of interest and will carry meaning for specific audiences. For example, one of the most easily quantifiable and useful demographic statistics to consider is the age range of your audience. If you have a good sense of how old most of your audience members are, you’ll be able to choose a topic that is relevant to concerns of their generation and ensure that the examples and anecdotes you use in your speech will resonate with the age groups you are addressing.
Culture and You
Have you ever found yourself feeling disconnected from a speaker, whether it was a course instructor or a politician, because he or she failed to consider your age, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnic background? Conversely, have you ever found a speaker very effective because he or she did consider such factors?
As we learned in chapter 3, some audience characteristics will be more salient—or significant—in some speaking situations than in others. For example, if your audience members are mostly Latina women in their fifties who have survived breast cancer, their status as survivors is not likely to be salient if you are informing them about the importance of maximizing their annual contributions to their 401(k) plans before retiring in the next ten years. But if you are persuading a group to contribute money to the American Cancer Society in order to support new research campaigns, their experience fighting cancer should be firmly in your mind as you develop and deliver your speech.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “How can I possibly know all the demographics of my audience members?” You’re right, of course. You can’t necessarily know that the guy who sits three rows back on the left side of the classroom is a heterosexual Libertarian genetics major from a working-class family and a Christian who works part-time at the deli around the corner from his off-campus apartment. But you can look for some general traits and trends. For example, most school Web sites make data available on factors like age, race, gender, and religion and often provide information on the percentage of students receiving financial aid, the number of students living on campus versus those who commute, how many are enrolled full-time versus part-time, and so on.
There are some limitations to using demographic information that deserve mention here. Sometimes speakers—including politicians and advertisers—mistakenly apply stereotypes to demographic groups or overgeneralize about common views of group members. And, in some cases, the results of demographic data collection can be flawed or even downright wrong (Sprague, Stuart, & Bodary, 2010). Because of this, it’s important to be mindful of the way you use demographic information. For example, your class may be 75 percent Catholic, but that doesn’t automatically mean that they’ll be interested in a speech related to the church. That’s why it’s important to anticipate how your audience members might respond to your speech—even before you officially choose your topic and conduct your research.
