Pearson and Nelson pp. 146-168
TOPIC SLECTION AND AUDIENCE
ANALYSIS
A.
Individual
Brainstorming
B.
Personal
Inventories
C.
Involvement
in the Topic
D.
Knowledge
of the Topic
E.
Appropriateness
of the Topic
F.
Narrowing
Your Topic
II.
Audience
Analysis
A.
Definition—the
collection and interpretation of data on the demographics, attitudes, values
and beliefs of the audience obtained through observation, inferences,
questionnaires, or interviews.
B.
Why
analyze your audience—especially when they are just your classmates?
C.
Four
levels of Audience Analysis (easy to difficult)
1.
Is
it Captive or Voluntary?
2.
Demographic
Analysis
a.
How
does it help you?
b.
Demographic
analysis is very important for politicians who have advance people to research
potential audiences so as not to offend them.
3.
Audience
Interest in and Knowledge of the Topic
4.
The
Audience’s Attitudes Beliefs and Values
a.
Attitude—a
predisposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to a person, object, idea or
event. Attitudes of audience members will make a difference in appropriateness
of your topic, such as:
b.
Belief—a
conviction.
c.
Value—a
deeply rooted belief that governs our attitudes. Both beliefs and attitudes can
be traced to a value we hold.
D.
Ways
of Audience Analysis
1.
Observation
a.
Seeing
and sensing behavior and characteristics of audience
2.
Inference
a.
Drawing
a tentative conclusion based on some evidence
b.
Just
as we infer someone is homeless because of the way they dress, we can use
careful perceptions of the audience to tell us something about them.
3.
Questionnaire