Public Speaking

74 CHAPTER^6 Audience Analysis

When listeners share your attitude toward your topic, whether it’s negative or

positive, your speaking task is usually easier than when audience attitudes are diverse.

Listeners with neutral attitudes probably have not thought enough about the subject to

form an opinion.

Values are standards for making evaluative judgments such as good or bad, beautiful

or ugly, appropriate or inappropriate. Almost all your topics touch on your values in

some way because you at least consider the subject significant enough to discuss.

However, when you use words such as right or wrong, moral or immoral, important or

insignificant, you are directly addressing value questions. Ranked questions such as this

work well for value questions:

In vehicles, I care most about (rank these in order from most to least):

Safety

Fuel efficiency

Versatility

Noise pollution

Finally, this scaled question is a way to assess behaviors—what audience members

do—or would do—given the chance.

I would drive an ATV, given the chance.

I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I

strongly agree mildly neutral mildly disagree strongly

agree agree disagree disagree

Leif found that only about one in four knew what a hovercraft was, so he organized

his remarks around the vehicle itself and the principles that made it work. Respondents

cared about fuel efficiency and safety but were less concerned about versatility and noise

pollution, and he could use those values to explain that hovercraft, although noisy and

hard to maneuver, were fuel efficient and safe. (Read his outline in Chapter 11 or on

your online resources.)

Indirect Methods

Indirect methods are less straightforward. Personally observe your classmates before,

during, and after class. Listen carefully to their in-class contributions for clues about

their beliefs and attitudes. For an outside group, consult secondhand sources by talking

to people who are familiar with the group or by getting printed brochures or material

from group-related websites. The commencement speaker mentioned earlier went to

the university’s website, read its mission statement, looked at online editions of the cam-

pus newspaper, and talked to alumni to get a feel for the makeup, reputation, and ethos

of the place.

In summary, knowing your audience’s psychological profile can help you better

focus your speech. For instance, Terah’s topic was organ donation, but questionnaire

responses showed that her classmates already knew about organ donors and they had

positive attitudes about becoming one. However, they hadn’t registered yet, so she

focused on two things: (1) how easy it was to sign up and (2) why they should actually

complete the process soon (Figure 6.2 shows a sample combination questionnaire.).

values standards used to
make evaluative judgments
such as good or bad

ranked questions asking for
responses to be placed in an
order

indirect methods assessing
audiences by observation or
secondhand sources

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