1.13 Audience Analysis and Persuasion

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1.13 Audience Analysis and Persuasion

When choosing a topic for your persuasive speech, it is crucial to consider the composition of your audience. Because persuasive speeches are intended to influence or reinforce an audience’s thoughts or behaviors, speakers must consider what and how the audience thinks, feels, and does. Your audience might be ambivalent about your topic, or they may be strongly opposed, in strong agreement, or somewhere along the spectrum. In persuasive speeches, it matters where they fall on this continuum. We have discussed audience analysis in previous chapters. In this section, we will dive deeper into audience analysis and how to use audience analysis to increase your chances of persuasion.

Types of Audiences

A smiling woman in the middle of a crowd. — “Photo Essay” by United States Armed Force. Public domain

Receptive Audiences

You may find yourself in situations that allow you to appeal to a receptive audience that already knows something about your topic and is generally supportive of, or open to, the point you are trying to make. For example, parents are generally interested in keeping their children safe. If you seek to persuade them that they should work with their kids to prevent them from being taken advantage of on social networking sites, they are likely to welcome what you have to say. Although they are already convinced that it is important to keep their children safe, this audience may not yet be persuaded that they have the need or ability to keep their kids safe in an online environment.

Strategies

Identification: You can foster a sense of connection with them by highlighting things you have in common. If you are a parent you might say something like, “I have two children and one of my biggest concerns is making sure they are safe.” If you are not a parent you might say, “one of the things I appreciate most about my parents is that I know they are always trying to keep me safe.” With these statements, you not only relate to the audience but also demonstrate that you share a common concern.
Clear purpose: Offer a statement of purpose and tell the audience what you would like them to do in response to your message. If the audience is already likely to agree with your point, they will be looking for ways to act on it. Offer practical steps that they can take. Even if the steps must be carried out later (i.e. the parents in our example may have to wait to get home and start talking with their child about social networking habits), give them a way to respond to the message immediately and show their support. In this case you may have them write down the first thing they will say to their child, or practice saying it to the person next to them. Having them act on your message before leaving reinforces their already favorable response to what you are asking.^[1]

Neutral Audiences

Most of the groups that a persuasive speaker addresses are neutral audiences. These audiences are not passionate about the topic or speaker, often because they do not have enough information or because they are not aware that they should be concerned. Beebe & Beebe explain that the challenge in addressing a neutral audience is to foster their interest in your proposition.^[2] They offer a few tips for cultivating interest in a neutral audience.

Strategies

Relate to them: Begin by relating your topic to the audience. You can offer a story or statistic that relates the topic directly to the dominant demographic in the audience. If you are trying to convince first-year college students to avoid credit card solicitors on campus you might start with something like, “I know those t-shirts the credit card vendors are handing out are stylish and, best of all, free! But that t-shirt could cost you thousands of dollars before you even graduate.” Rather than beginning with a diatribe on the evils of debt, which many of them may not yet have experienced, you relate to their desire for a free t-shirt and a common belief they are likely to share, that “free” should not translate to “expensive.”

Relate to someone they care about: If you cannot relate the topic directly to the audience, another approach is to relate the topic to someone they care about, like a family member or friend. Keep in mind that, while the receptive audience may be eager to respond immediately, the neutral audience may simply be more concerned about the topic or more inclined to consider the behavior change you are advocating.^[3] In this case, consider offering resources for more information, or a few minor steps they can take when they are ready.

Hostile Audiences

Unfortunately, some audiences may be resistant or even hostile to your persuasive speech. A hostile audience may take issue with your topic or with you as a speaker. In this case, your primary goal is to persuade the audience to listen to what you have to say.^[4] Once they are willing to listen, then you will have the ability to change their minds in the future.

Strategies

Build ethos: Latter, we will address ways that you can foster a better relationship with the audience by building your ethos. Just know that if your audience likes and respects you, they are more likely to be persuaded.

Be patient: If the audience is not likely to agree with your proposition, wait until later in the speech to offer it. Opening with a clear statement of purpose, which a receptive audience welcomes, will make an unreceptive audience more hostile to your goals. For example, if you begin by telling business owners that you think they should pay workers more, they are likely to think of all the reasons that will threaten their livelihood rather than listening to your message.

Common ground: Begin by highlighting issues on which you agree. You might open with a discussion of the challenges businesses face in attempting to retain quality workers and increase productivity. Once you have identified areas of agreement, you can offer your proposition as a way of addressing your shared goals.

Validate: Acknowledge opposing arguments and audience reservations and demonstrate that you have given them ample consideration. Showing that you understand and respect their opposing position is the most important step toward encouraging a hostile audience to at least hear you out.

Cite: Cite credible evidence that supports your proposition in light of those reservations.

Collecting Audience Information

In chapter 1 – Audience Analysis – we discussed the types of audience analysis: demographical, psychological, and situational. Now we will discuss how to collect information for your audience analysis.

Direct Observation

Audience analysis by direct observation is a form of qualitative data gathering. We perceive information through one or more of our five natural senses—hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and smelling. All you really need to do for this method of observation is to examine your audience. If you are lucky enough to be able to do this before speaking to your audience, you will be able to gather some basic reflective data (How old are they? What racial mix does this audience have? Does their non-verbal behavior indicate that they are excited to hear this speech?) that will help you arrange your thoughts and arguments for your speech.^[7]

“MobileHCI 2008 Audience” by Nhenze. CC-BY-SA.

One excellent way to become informed about your audience is to ask them about themselves. In its most basic form, this is data collection. Whenever possible, have conversations with them—interact with members of your audience—get to know them on a personal level (Where did you go to school? Do you have siblings/pets? What kind of car do you drive?) Through these types of conversations, you will be able to get to know and appreciate each audience member as both a human being and an audience member. You will come to understand what interests them, convinces them, or even makes them laugh. You might arouse interest and curiosity in your topic while you also gain valuable data.

Clearly this cannot be done in every speaking situation, however. Often, we are required to give an unacquainted-audience presentation. Unacquainted-audience presentations are speeches when you are completely unfamiliar with the audience and its demographics. In these cases, it is always best to try and find some time to sit down and talk with someone you trust (or even several people) who might be familiar with the given audience. These conversations can be very constructive in helping you understand the context in which you will be speaking.

Not understanding the basic demographic characteristics of an audience, or further, that audience’s beliefs, values, or attitudes about a given topic makes your presentation goals haphazard, at best. Look around the room at the people who will be listening to your speech. What types of gender, age, ethnicity, and educational- level characteristics are represented? What are their expectations for your presentation? This is all-important information you should know before you begin your research and drafting your outline. Who is it that I am going to be talking to?

Inference

Audience analysis by inference is merely a logical extension of your observations drawn in the method above. It is a form of critical thinking known as inductive reasoning, and another form of qualitative data gathering. An inference is when you make a reasoned tentative conclusion or logical judgment on the basis of available evidence. It is best used when you can identify patterns in your evidence that indicate something is expected to happen again or should hold true based upon previous experiences. A good speaker knows how to interpret information and draw conclusions from that information. As individuals, we make inferences—or reasonable assumptions—all the time. For example, when we hear someone speaking Arabic, we infer that they are from the Middle East. When we see this person carrying a copy of The Koran, we infer that they are also a follower of the Muslim faith. These are reasoned conclusions that we make based upon the evidence available to us and our general knowledge about people and their traits.When we reason, we make connections, distinctions, and predictions; we use what is known or familiar to us to reach a conclusion about something that is unknown or unfamiliar for it to make sense. Granted, of course, inferences are sometimes wrong. Here’s a familiar example: You reach into a jar full of jelly beans, and they turn out to be all black. You love black jelly beans. You reach back into the jar and take another hand full, which turns out to be, again, all black. Since you can’t see the jelly beans inside the jar you make an assumption based on empirical evidence (two handfuls of jelly beans) that all of the jelly beans are black. You reach into the jar a third time and take a hand full of jelly beans out, but this time they aren’t any black jelly beans, but white, pink, and yellow. Your conclusion that all of the jelly beans were black turned out to be fallacious.

Surveys

There are a great number of survey methods available to the speaker. However, we will cover three primary types in this section because they are utilized the most. The first type of survey method you should know about is the basic questionnaire, which is a series of questions advanced to produce demographic and attitudinal data from your audience.

Man with clipboard — “Man With a Clipboard” by Elizabeth M. CC-BY.

Clearly, audience members should not be required to identify themselves by name on the basic questionnaire. Anonymous questionnaires are more likely to produce truthful information. Remember, all you are looking for is a general read of your audience; you should not be looking for specific information about any respondent concerning your questionnaire in particular. It is a bulk sampling tool, only.

While you can easily gather basic demographic data (examples of demographic questions are shown in the chart following this section), we need to adjust our questions a bit more tightly or ask more focused questions, in order to understand the audience’s “predispositions” to think or act in certain ways. For example, you can put an attitudinal extension on the basic questionnaire.

These questions probe more deeply into the psyche of your audience members and will help you see where they stand on certain issues. Of course, you may need to tighten these questions to get to the heart of your specific topic. But, once you do, you’ll have a wealth of data at your disposal that, ultimately, will tell you how to work with your target audience.

Ordered Categories

Another method of finding out your audience’s value set is to survey them according to their value hierarchy. A value hierarchy is a person’s value structure placed in relationship to a given value set.^[9] The way to determine a person’s value hierarchy is to use the ordered categories sampling method. Here, each audience member is given a list of values on a piece of paper, and each audience member writes these values on another piece of paper in order according to their importance to him/her. Each response is different, of course, because each audience member is different, but when analyzed by the speaker, common themes will present themselves in the overall data. Accordingly, the speaker can then identify with those common value themes.

Likert type survey

The final method of asserting your audience’s attitudes deals with Likert-type testing. Likert-type testing is when you make a statement, and ask the respondent to gauge the depth of their sentiments toward that statement either positively, negatively, or neutrally. Typically, each scale will have 5 weighted response categories, being +2, +1, 0, -1, and -2. What the Likert-type test does, that other tests do not do, is measure the extent to which attitudes are held. See how the Likert-type test does this in the example on “unsolicited email” in Figure 5.1.

A small Likert-type test will tell you where your audience, generally speaking, stands on issues. As well, it will inform you as to the degree of the audience’s beliefs on these issues. The Likert-type test should be used when attempting to assess a highly charged or polarizing issue, because it will tell you, in rough numbers, whether or not your audience agrees or disagrees with your topic.

No matter what kind of data sampling you choose, you need to allow time to collect the information and then analyze it. For example, if you create a survey of five questions, and you have your audience of 20 people complete the survey, you will need to deal with 100 survey forms. At high levels such as political polling, the audience members quickly click on their answers on a webpage or on a hand-held “clicker,” and the specific survey software instantly collects and collates the information for researchers. If you are in a small community group or college class, it is more likely that you will be doing your survey “the old-fashioned way”–so you will need some time to mark each individual response on a “master sheet” and then average or summarize the results in an effective way to use in your speech-writing and speech-giving.

Below are examples of possible survey questions.

Figure 5.1: Examples of Survey Questions

Demographic Questions

Academic level in college
1. freshman
2. sophomore
3. junior
4. senior
Marital status
1. single
2. married
3. divorced
4. widowed
Age
1. less than 18 years old
2. 18–30 years old
3. 31–45 years old
4. over 46 years of age

Attitudinal Questions

I regard myself as
1. conservative
2. liberal
3. socialist
4. independent
I believe that abortion
1. should be illegal
2. should remain legal
3. should be legal only in cases of rape
4. not sure
I think that prayer should be permitted in public schools
1. yes
2. no
3. undecided

Value Ordered Questions

Place the following list of values in order of importance, from most important (1) to least important (5).

Freedom
Liberty
Justice
Democracy
Safety

__________
__________
__________
__________
__________

Likert-Type Questions

Indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each question.

Unsolicited email should be illegal.
Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree
Making unsolicited email illegal would be fundamentally unfair to businesses.
Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree
I usually delete unsolicited email before even opening it.
Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

Adapting to Your Audience

The first thing a good audience analysis can do is help you focus your content on your specific audience. Even in an audience that appears to be homogeneous—composed of people who are very similar to one another—different listeners will understand the same ideas in different ways. Every member of every audience has their own frame of reference – the unique set of perspectives, experience, knowledge, and values belonging to every individual.

Meanings Are in People, Not Words

Part of the dialogic process in public speaking is realizing that you and your audience may differ in how you see your speech. Hellmut Geissner and Edith Slembeck (1986) discussed Geissner’s idea of responsibility or the notion that the meanings of words must be mutually agreed upon by people interacting with each other (Geissner & Slembek, 1986). If you say the word “dog” and think of a soft, furry pet and your audience member thinks of the animal that attacked him as a child, the two of you perceive the word from very different vantage points. As speakers, we must do our best to craft messages that take our audience into account and use audience feedback to determine whether the meaning we intend is the one that is received. To be successful at conveying our desired meaning, we must know quite a bit about our audience so we can make language choices that will be the most appropriate for the context. Although we cannot predict how all our audience members will interpret specific words, we do know that—for example—using teenage slang when speaking to the audience at a senior center would most likely hurt our ability to convey our meaning clearly.

Clarity

Nothing is more lamentable than a rhetorical actor who endeavors to make grandiose the impressions of others through the utilization of an elephantine albeit nonsensical argot—or nothing is worse than a speaker who tries to impress the audience with a giant vocabulary that no one understands. In the first portion of the preceding sentence, we pulled out as many polysyllabic words as we could find. Unfortunately, most people will just find the sentence wordy and the meaning will pass right over their heads. As such, we as public speakers must ensure that we are clear in what we say.

Make sure that you state your topic clearly at the outset, using words that your audience will understand. Letting them know what to expect from your speech shows consideration for them as listeners and lets them know that you value their time and attention.

Throughout your speech, define your terms clearly and carefully in order to avoid misleading or alarming people by mistake. Be careful not to use jargon or “insider” language that will exclude listeners who aren’t “in the know.” If you approach audience analysis in haste, you might find yourself presenting a speech with no clear message. You might avoid making any statements outright from fear of offending. It is much better to know to whom you’re speaking and to present a clear, decisive message that lets listeners know what you think.

Communication Styles

While you are trying to balance these language, cognition, culture, and value issues, you should also recognize that some cultures prefer a more animated delivery style than do others. The intelligent speaker will understand this, and adapt his or her verbal and nonverbal delivery accordingly.

Multicultural Analysis

In our increasingly diverse society, it is worthy to pay particular attention to the issue of speaking to a multicultural audience. Odds are that any real world audience that you encounter will have an underlying multicultural dimension. As a speaker, you need to recognize that the perspective you have on any given topic may not necessarily be shared by all of the members of your audience.^[8] Therefore, it is imperative that you become a culturally effective speaker. Culturally effective speakers develop the capacity to appreciate other cultures and acquire the necessary skills to speak effectively to people with diverse ethnic backgrounds. Keep these factors in mind when writing a speech for a diverse audience.

Language

Many people speak different languages, so if you are translating words, do not use slang or jargon, which can be confusing. You could add a visual aid (a poster, a picture, a PowerPoint slide or two) that would show your audience what you mean – which instantly translates into the audience member’s mind.^[9]

Cognition

Audience applauding — “Audience Applause at MIT meeting in Beijing” by Philip McMaster. CC-BY-NC.

Realize that different cultures have different cultural-cognitive processes or ways of looking at the very concept of logic itself. Accordingly, gauge your audience as to their diverse ways of thinking and be sensitive to these differing logics.

Ethnocentricity

Remember that in many cases you will be appealing to people from other cultures. Do not assume that your culture is dominant or better than other cultures. That assumption is called ethnocentrism, and ethnocentric viewpoints have the tendency to drive a wedge between you and your audience.^[10]

Values

Not only do individuals have value systems of their own, but societies promote value systems, as well. Keep in mind the fact that you will be appealing to value hierarchies that are socially-laden, as well as those that are individually-borne.

Example

Consider how you would adjust your speech content for each of the audiences below.

A student is delivering an informative speech and their topic is: Early Childhood Health Care

Audience #1: A group of couples who have each recently had a new baby and who live in an affluent suburb.

Demographics: There will be young adults with high socioeconomic status.

Attitudes, beliefs, and values: They will be eager to know about the very best available health care for their children, whether they are healthy or have various medical problems.

Knowledge level: They will already know quite a lot about the topic, so you will want to find an aspect that may be new for them.

Audience #2: Couples and single parents who live in lower income housing.

Demographics: There will be working parents in their 20-40s with low socioeconomic status.

Attitudes, beliefs, and values: They will be eager to know about the very best available cost effective health care for their children, what various medical problems may be a concern, and where to find resources.

Knowledge level: They likely do not know a lot about the topic – that is why they are here.

Avoid Offending Your Audience

It might seem obvious that speakers should use audience analysis to avoid making offensive remarks, but even very experienced speakers sometimes forget this basic rule. If you were an Anglo-American elected official addressing a Latino audience, would you make a joke about a Mexican American person’s name sounding similar to the name of a popular brand of tequila? In fact, a state governor did just that in June 2011. Not surprisingly, news organizations covering the event reported that the joke fell flat (Shahid, 2011). People are members of groups they didn’t choose and can’t change. We didn’t choose our race, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual orientation, intellectual potential, or appearance. We already know that jokes aimed at people because of their membership in these groups are not just politically incorrect but also ethically wrong.

It is not only insensitive humor that can offend an audience. Speakers also need to be aware of language and nonverbal behaviors that state or imply a negative message about people based on their various membership groups. Examples include language that suggests that all scientists are men, that all relationships are heterosexual, or that all ethnic minorities are unpatriotic. By the same token, we should avoid embedding assumptions about people in our messages. Even the most subtle suggestion may not go unnoticed. For example, if, in your speech, you assume that elderly people are frail and expensively medicated, you may offend people whose elder loved ones do not conform in any way to your assumptions.

Scholars Samovar and McDaniel tell us that ethical language choices require four guidelines:

Be accurate; present the facts accurately.
Be aware of the emotional impact; make sure that you don’t manipulate feelings.
Avoid hateful words; refrain from language that disparages or belittles people.
Be sensitive to the audience; know how audience members prefer to be identified (e.g., Native American instead of Indian, women instead of girls, African American instead of black, disabled instead of crippled) (Samovar & McDaniel, 2007).

If you alienate your audience, they will stop listening. They will refuse to accept your message, no matter how true or important it is. They might even become hostile. If you fail to recognize the complexity of your audience members and if you treat them as stereotypes, they will resent your assumptions and doubt your credibility.

There are many aspects of diversity that are not visually obvious, so your audience is often more diverse than you might initially think. Suppose you are going to give a talk on pool safety to residents of a very affluent suburban community—will all your audience members be wealthy? No. There might be some who are unemployed, some who are behind on their mortgage payments, some who live in rented rooms, not to mention some who work as babysitters or housekeepers. Furthermore, if your listeners have some characteristics in common, it doesn’t mean that they all think alike. For instance, if your audience consists of people who are members of military families, don’t assume that they all have identical beliefs about national security. If there are many business students in your audience, don’t assume they all agree about the relative importance of ethics and profits. Instead, recognize that a range of opinions exists.

This is where the frame of reference we mentioned earlier becomes an important concept. People have a wide variety of reasons for making the choices they make and for doing the things they do. For instance, a business student, while knowing that profitability is important, might have a strong interest in green lifestyles, low energy use, and alternative energy sources, areas of economic development that might require a great deal of investment before profits are realized. In fact, some business students may want to be involved in a paradigm shift away from “business as usual.”

These examples illustrate how important it is to use audience analysis to avoid stereotyping—taking for granted that people with a certain characteristic in common have the same likes, dislikes, values, and beliefs. All members of our audiences deserve to have the same sensitivity and the same respect extended to them as unique individuals. Respecting diversity is not merely a responsibility within public speaking; it should be a responsibility we strive to embrace in all our human interactions.

See the below table to guidelines to consider while using audience analysis to adjust speech content.

Table 5.1: Tailoring a Speech to Demographic Characteristics
Demographic Characteristics	Do’s and Don’ts
Ethnicity	Don’t try to use words or phrases to “cuddle up” to one race or another. You would lose some credibility if you made a point in your speech and then said, “So get jiggy with it” or “You could enjoy that with your afternoon tea ceremony.”^[2]
Age	Stay away from jargon from one age range or another, like “OMG” or “the cat’s pajamas”^[3]
Sex/Gender	Use words that are not sex/gender-specific. Instead of policeman, fireman, and stewardess, use police officer, firefighter, and flight attendant. Do not use one sex/gender pronouns, like assuming a teacher is a “she” and a dentist is a “he.”^[4]
Income	Some people in your audience will have more money than others. So if you keep fit by maintaining membership in a prominent gym and you take classes there also, don’t assume everyone else can afford to do so. You can tell your audience what you do, but give them options like parking far from the store and working out with a yoga or pilates CD at home.
Occupation	Unless you are speaking at a convention where everyone in your audience works in the same field, make your speech more explanatory. Your audience has not had extensive training in medical terms nor legal terms. So you need to explain what you are talking about, without using the big words which would make your audience feel confused, stupid, and put down.
Religion	Realize that your audience will likely have a wide variety of religions represented, an some people may have no religious or spiritual beliefs. So you can say that you read the Bible every night for 10 minutes, but that you are suggesting that everyone choose a religious or inspirational reading for presleep relaxation.^[5]
Education Level	Even if you are speaking to an audience of college freshmen, not everyone has had the same educational experiences. For example, some of the people in your class may have completed a high school equivalency program like the GED, some may be high school students who are taking a college class, some may have gone to secondary school in another country, some may have been homeschooled, and some may have gone to a private honors-based prep school. You need to be careful not to talk down to your audience and not to use fancy sentences and words to try to impress your audience. Gauging the right level of communication for your speech is an important challenge.

Key Takeaways

Different types of audiences will respond differently to messages.
Gathering information about our audience through several methods will provide the information needed for decision making throughout the speech making process.
Once we have gathered information about our audience, we must adapt our message and approach to reach the audience effectively.

References

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Bem, D. J. (1970). Beliefs, attitudes, and human affairs. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co. ↵

Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, attitudes, and values; a theory of organization and change (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ↵

Ting-Toomey. S & Chung, L.C. (2005). Understanding intercultural communication. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing. ↵

Klopf, D.W. & Cambra, R.E. (1991) Speaking skills for prospective teachers (2nd Ed.). Englewood, CO: Morton Publishing Company. Tauber, R.T. & Mester, C.S. Acting Lessons for Teachers, Using Performance Skills in the Classroom. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. ↵

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Communication Competence: Developing Skills for Your Personal and Professional Life Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.