Name:
Public
Speaking
Ms.
Hoffmann
Date:
Audience
Analysis: Demographics
You need to reach your audience in
order for your speech to make an impact.
In order to reach your audience, you need to know some things about the
people who are in it.
Audience Demographics—Observable
characteristics of listeners, including age, gender, educational level, group
affiliations, and sociocultural background.
1.
Age—Since
Aristotle, age has been used to predict audience reactions. He suggested that young listeners are
“pleasure-loving, optimistic, impulsive, trusting, idealistic, and easily
persuaded” while older listeners “are
more set in their ways, more skeptical, cynical, and concerned with maintaining
a comfortable existence.” Today’s
observations of age as a factor related to audiences remain the same.
2.
Gender—This
category is trickier than age. Unlike
age, assumptions related to gender are changing rapidly. While gender is important to consider, it is
important not to overgeneralize or to perpetuate gender stereotypes in your
speeches.
3.
Educational
Level—This category can help you to determine how
knowledgeable and/or interested your audience may be in your topic. For example, better-educated audiences
generally are more interested in social, consumer, political, and environmental
issues. They also tend to be more
curious and open-minded. However,
better-educated audiences also require better supporting information and are
more likely to be aware of multiple viewpoints.
4.
Group
Affiliations—These reflect people’s interests,
attitudes and values. Knowing this can
help you to understand how you need to craft your speech both so that your
message is relevant to your audience and so that you can promote identification
between yourself and your audience.
a.
Occupational
Groups—Jobs that your audience has or aspires to
attain.
i.
Language to use
ii.
Interesting aspects of a topic
iii.
What it will find to be credible
evidence
b.
Political
Groups
i.
Preferences
ii.
How interested in it
iii.
Positive and negative trigger words
c.
Religious
Groups—Formal groups and general beliefs to which an
audience ascribes. These underlie many
social and cultural attitudes and values.
i.
Specific beliefs/teaching of that
group
ii.
Avoid stereotyping
d.
Social
Groups—Groups that we choose on the basis of our interests.
i.
Interesting aspects of a topic
5.
Sociocultural
Background—A broad category that can include
everything from the section of the country in which people live to their racial
or ethnic identity to their economic status.
a.
Knowing the precise background can
tell you
i.
Life Experiences
ii.
Interests
iii.
Viewpoints
b.
Tells you general details, but you
may need to touch on specific subgroups as you go to make everyone feel
included.
**No matter what the composition of
your audience is, you need to keep in mind that each member of it is a unique
individual. Although each person may fit
in with the rest of the audience in most ways, there is still something that
sets that person apart from the others.
**You may change your presentation
and some aspects of your speech depending upon who is in your audience, but you
should not be changing your position.
Sample Sites Containing Demographic
Information—
·
Things to Keep in Mind:
o
Be careful: National Polls are
self-reported.
o
Provides you with tendencies, but you
have to remember that your audience is made of unique individuals.
Name:
Public
Speaking
Ms.
Hoffmann
Date:
Demographic Data
It
is your turn to research demographic information about a potential
audience. You will need to find some
information for each of the five demographic categories reviewed in class. You should use the websites mentioned in
class to help you to answer the questions.
For the purpose of this first assignment, you will pretend that you are
preparing a speech for citizens of Proctor.
1. What is the age of this audience?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Link of source:
2. How
might this impact your speech?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. What
is the gender of your audience?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Link of source:
4. How
might this impact your speech?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. What
is the educational level of your audience?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Link of source:
6. How
might this impact your speech?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. What
group affiliations does your audience have?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Link of source:
8. How
might this impact your speech?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9. What
is the sociocultural background of your audience?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Link of source:
10. How
might this impact your speech?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
