Chapter 14 Delivering Presentations 419tative and in control, he also expressed his grief in a
way that rang true to everyone watching or listening.
He wasn’t just speaking as a president that day but
as a parent. When an audience feels that a speaker is
simply acting, they may question the sincerity of the
message.
Adapting to Your Audience
One common mistake speakers make is to speak to—or
even at—the audience, rather than to speak with the
audience. As discussed earlier, in Western cultures, this
generally means making and maintaining eye contact.
But it also means listening to audience reactions, paying
attention to listeners’ body movements, and continually
gauging their responses to what you say and do so that
you can make adjustments to your speech as you go
along. For example, if you observe audience members frowning or squinting, it
may be a sign of misunderstanding. You can take this as a cue to slow down or
emphasize key points more explicitly. Alternatively, if you notice your audience
members responding with smiles, focused eye contact, or even laughter, you
probably want to maintain the style of speaking that produced such a positive
reaction.
Creating Immediacy with Your Audience
As you learned in Chapter 4, immediacy is a feeling of closeness, involvement, and
warmth between people as communicated by nonverbal behavior (Mehrabian,
1971; Prager, 2000). We often think of immediacy as being an important facet
of close interpersonal relationships. This is certainly true—but it is also an
important component of building trust in the relationship between the speaker
and the audience (Andersen, 1979).
Speakers enhance their immediacy with their audience by following many
of the guidelines we have already set forth in this chapter: establishing and
maintaining eye contact with audience members, smiling, moving toward the
audience, using inclusive gestures and posture, speaking in a relaxed or conver-
sational tone or style, and using humor. Research clearly shows that audiences
respond favorably to speaker immediacy in a variety of settings (Christophel,
1990; Frymier, 1994; Teven, 2007a, 2007b, 2010; Teven & Hanson, 2004).
However, as is the case with interpersonal relationships, immediacy is a two-
way street. Audiences help to foster this feeling of closeness and trust by listen-
ing actively, responding with eye contact, nodding, and offering nonverbal
indications of agreement, surprise, confusion, and so on.
Additional Guidelines for Online Speech Delivery
There are special points to keep in mind when you are delivering a speech for
an online course. All of the points we’ve already made largely still apply (for
example, dressing appropriately and looking up from your notes), but you
should also consider the following tips for an effective presentation:
PRESIDENT RONALD
REAGAN earned his reputa-
tion as a gifted public speaker
by recognizing the interaction
between speaker and audi-
ence and presenting himself
as approachable and self-
assured. © Wally McNamee/CORBIS