342 Part 4 Public SpeakingConsidering Audience Expectations
and Situational Factors
People naturally bring different sets of expectations and emotions to a speech
event (O’Hair, Stewart, & Rubenstein, 2012). And as with other forms of
communication discussed in this book, competent public speaking involves
understanding and acknowledging the expectations of your communication
partners—in this case, your audience.
Audiences are likely to have expectations about your speech based on the
speaking situation, their cultural norms for public speaking, and even their
knowledge about you as an individual or as a speaker. For example, think about
the types of expectations you bring to a wedding toast. Would you expect a
best man to say the bride is untrustworthy because she cheated on her taxes last
year? This would clearly defy tradition and cultural expectations. Similarly, as
we learned from some Russian colleagues, an American businessperson giving
a speech in Moscow might defy audience expectations by coming right to the
point when informing them about a particular technology. In Russia, audiences
expect speeches to favor storytelling rather than direct fact sharing.
Audiences can also be influenced by a variety of situational factors that you
cannot always plan for. Be aware of issues such as the time of day of your speech,
events happening in the outside world, or the comfort and attractiveness of the
room. These issues do matter when attempting to hold an audience’s attention.
Even the size of the audience is a relevant situational factor, as large (more than
forty members) or small audiences may demand more or less interpersonal
interaction, depending on your topic. To be a competent speaker, you should
consider all of these factors when preparing your speech.Considering Audience Demographics
and PsychographicsAlthough understanding audience expectations and situational factors is an
important component of audience analysis, it is only one of the important
steps. You should also consider your audience’s demographics and psychographics.
Demographics are the quantifiable social categories of groups of people. Your
analysis might identify statistics for audience members’ gender, socioeconomic
status (including income, occupation, and education), religious and political
affiliations, 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 resi-
dential status (living on campus or off campus), major area of study, or the geo-
graphical regions your fellow students hail from. In addition to understanding
their demographic categories, it can be important to analyze your audience’s
psychographics, their psychological qualities such as attitudes, values, lifestyles,
behaviors, and interests (Kotler & Keller, 2011; Paul, 2001). Marketing research-
ers are particularly interested in psychographics, as having such information
allows them to more effectively market products to specific targets. To learn
about people’s psychological profiles, researchers closely monitor Internet traffic,
discussions, and trends on social networking sites to see what people think about
topics ranging from health and fitness to parenting.CONNECT
Analyzing expectations in
a speaking situation may
seem difficult, but you
frequently do this work in
other communication
contexts. As we learn in
Chapter 7, relational
partners must address each
other’s expectations in
order for the relationship to
grow. Similarly, the speaker
must remember the audi-
ence’s expectations for the
speaking occasion (level
of formality or appropriate
language, for example) in
order to be competent and
successful.Have you ever attended a
speaking event where the
speaker did not behave
appropriately for the
occasion? How did it make
you feel as a listener?AND YOU?