Analyzing Your Audience
by Stacy DeGeer,
Monmouth College, 1998
Introduction:
What is Audience Analysis?
Audience analysis is the process of examining information
about your listeners. That analysis
helps you to adapt your message so that your listeners will respond as you wish.1
In everyday conversations you adapt your message to your
audience. For example, if you went to a
party the night before, you would explain the party differently to your friends
and family. To your best friend you
might say, “We partied all night and there were tons of people there.” To your mother you might say, “Oh, I had fun
with my friends.” And to your
significant other you might say, “It was fun, I had a great bonding time with
my friends.” In each of these
situations, you are adapting your message to your listening audience.
There
are three phases in audience analysis: adaption before, during, and after the
speech.
Audience Analysis -
Adapting to your audience before you speak
When we
analyze our audience, there are three ways to do this; demographic analysis,
attitudinal analysis, and environmental analysis.
Demographic Analysis involves age, gender, culture, ethnicity, race, religion, and
educational level. Aristotle noted
more than 2,000 years ago that few things affect a person’s outlook more than
his or her age.2 As college students we watch the same kinds of shows
and listen to the same types of music and have a common history. We all remember “Family Ties,” Back to
the Future, Madonna, and the Gulf War.
These are all things that we have in common. If I were to do a speech about any one of
these topics, I know that I may not have to explain who or what to an audience
of my own age. Age is a very important
factor and can be very helpful in picking a topic.
Gender is
another characteristic. It is important
to find out the ratio of men to women in the class. Also, make sure that you do not use any
sexist language, stereotypes or make jokes about gender. If you were to insult men in front of a class
of 12 men, then in most cases these 12 men are not going to listen to you for
the rest of your speech. You may have
also lost your credibility.
Culture is the
shared knowledge, behavior, attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms of a
group. It is very important to be
sensitive to students of other culture’s feelings. You may do or say something that may offend
them. Ethnicity is a person’s
national or religious heritage. There
may be a student from China Town in Chicago, or a student from Little Italy in
New York. A person’s race is a
person’s biological heritage. It is
important to learn as much as possible about these students before your speech,
so you are sure not to offend them or anger them.
Another touchy subject is religion. Be very careful when you speak about
different religions because people feel very strongly about their beliefs.
And finally, the education background of your
listeners can help your choice of vocabulary, language style, and your use of
examples. This can help you select and
narrow your topic.
Attitudinal
Analysis addresses the audience’s attitudes,
beliefs, and values. An attitude defines
what a person likes or dislikes. When
you choose a topic, it is important to find out your audience’s attitudes
toward the subject. If you are doing a
speech on rap, does your audience like rap.
A belief is what you believe to be true or false. You may believe that rap is destroying the
minds of young teenagers. And a value
is “a person’s beliefs or standards.”3 You may value
the future and the young minds that will be running the future. It is very important to find out before your
speech what people’s attitudes are about your subject. If you know these three things, it will be
much easier to bring your audience to the responses that you want.
Environmental Analysis is finding out the seating
arrangement, number of people, and the room lighting. The way the seats are arranged will
affect the audience’s response. It is
also important to know how many people will be there for the
speech. And the way the room is lighted
will affect the way the audience responds.
If it is dark and the speaker is showing overheads, there will not be
conversation. But if the room is light
and open, the audience may feel more free to talk. The seating arrangement, the number of people
and the room lighting are all factors that will affect the speech.
Questionnaires and
Interviewing
There
are many ways to obtain the answers to these questions in each section. You can gather information by handing out questionnaires
or by interviewing your fellow students with open ended
and closed ended questions. An
open-ended question is unrestricted. For
example:
What are your feelings
about high school nurses distributing free condoms?
This answer could be very
lengthy and will be very different in each person you ask. There are also closed ended questions which
are true-false, agree or disagree, yes-no, or multiple choice. For example:
Do you think the school
nurses should be able to distribute condoms to students? Circle Yes or
No.
This question gives a
straight answer and does not leave room for discussion or other details.
Examples of Questionnaires
and Interview Questions
Informative versus Persuasive
When gathering
information, it is important to keep in
mind the objective of the speech. If you
are writing a persuasive speech, it is important to find out the
audience’s interest level in the topic, their knowledge, and attitude. In an informative speech you are
not trying to change their attitude, but you still should know it.
The interest level and
how it relates to each person in the audience.
People are very egocentric and they have to hear things that are
meaningful to them.
The audience’s knowledge is
what level they are at and how much information you need to give to them.
And attitude reflects
the audience’s likes or dislike for the subject. If you are writing a persuasive speech it is
critical that you obtain this information before you present your speech.
II. Audience Analysis - Adapting to your audience
as you speak
When you are
giving your speech you have to adapt to your audience if you can tell they are
not listening or paying attention.
III. Audience Analysis - Analyzing your audience
after you speak
After you speak
there are many ways that you can tell how your audience responded to your
speech. There are nonverbal, verbal,
survey, and behavioral responses.
Nonverbal Responses examples:
Did the audience applaud?
Yes or No
How did they applaud?
Loud or Soft
What kind of facial expressions did they have? Smiling or Nodding
Verbal Responses - What did the audience say to
you after the speech?
Ex. “Good job!”
“That was really interesting?” “I
have a question about . . . ”
Survey Responses - Conduct a survey and find out what people liked or
learned about your speech. This will
allow you to gauge your listening results.
Behavioral Responses - If your purpose was to persuade your audience to do
something, their behavior after the speech can tell you if you did in fact
persuade them. If you were persuading
your audience to vote at the next election, you could ask around to see how
many people did actually vote.
Conclusion:
There are three
phases in audience analysis. The first
is adapting to your audience before you speak.
There are three ways to do this: demographic analysis, attitudinal
analysis, and environmental analysis.
Demographic analysis involves age, gender, culture, ethnicity, race,
religion, and educational level.
Attitudinal analysis addresses the audience’s attitudes, beliefs, and
values. And environmental analysis is
the importance of seating arrangements, audience size, and room lighting, etc.
The second phase is adapting to your audience as you
speak. By attending the nonverbal cues,
you may use a variety of things to bring attention back to your audience.
And the last stage is analyzing your audience after you
speak. There are nonverbal, verbal, survey,
and behavioral responses.
The last three phases may help you to adapt your message
to your audience better.
Remember! People are egocentric, they will only listen
if it pertains to them. So, take some
time to adapt your message!
Practice Exercise
1. Select a topic. This can be any controversial/persuasive
topic.
2. Determine what your position is on the
issue. (Pro or Con).
3. Write a 6 to 10-question survey using open
and closed ended questions.
4. Conduct the survey by distributing it to 15-20
students on campus. DO NOT USE EMAIL!
5. Based on the results, summarize the
audience’s view(s). Does the audience
agree with your beliefs?
6. Describe a strategy you might take to
effectively use what you know about your audience to persuade or inform them
about your topic.
7. Explain this strategy to the class.