What Is The Purpose Of Understanding The Makeup Of Your Audience Answers.com

The Benefits of Understanding Your Audience

The more you know and sympathise about the background and needs of your audience, the meliorate you can prepare your speech.

Learning Objectives

Explicate why it is important to understand your audience prior to delivering a spoken language

Key Takeaways

Primal Points

Knowing your audience —their general historic period, gender, pedagogy level, faith, language, civilization, and grouping membership—is the single nigh of import aspect of developing your speech.
Analyzing your audience will help you find information that you tin can utilise to build common footing betwixt you and the members of your audience.
A fundamental characteristic in public speaking situations is the unequal distribution of speaking time betwixt the speaker and the audience. This means that the speaker talks more than and the audience listens, ofttimes without asking questions or responding with whatsoever feedback.

Key Terms

audience: One or more people within hearing range of some bulletin; for example, a group of people listening to a functioning or speech; the crowd attending a stage functioning.
audition analysis: A study of the pertinent elements defining the makeup and characteristics of an audience.
Audience-centered: Tailored to an audience. When preparing a message, the speaker analyzes the audience in lodge to adapt the content and language usage to the level of the listeners.

Benefits of Understanding Audiences

When you are speaking, you want listeners to understand and respond favorably to what you lot are saying. An audience is ane or more people who come together to listen to the speaker. Audience members may exist face to face up with the speaker or they may be connected by communication technology such equally computers or other media. The audience may be small and private or it may be big and public. A key feature of public speaking situations is the diff distribution of speaking time between speaker and audition. As an example, the speaker ordinarily talks more while the audition listens, oftentimes without asking questions or responding with any feedback. In some situations, the audience may ask questions or respond overtly by clapping or making comments.

A picture of an audience at the Brooklyn Book Festival in New York City.

Understanding the Audience: It's important to understand the audition and generate a articulate message before giving a speech.

Audience-Centered Approach to Speaking

Since there is unremarkably express communication between the speaker and the audience, there is limited opportunity to go back to explicate your significant either during the speech or subsequently. When planning a speech, it is of import to know about the audition and to adapt the bulletin to the audition. Y'all want to prepare an audience-centered speech, a speech with a focus on the audience.

In public speaking, you are speaking to and for your audition; thus, understanding the audience is a major part of the speech communication-making process. In audience-centered speaking, getting to know your target audience is 1 of the most important tasks that you lot face up. Yous want to larn nigh the major demographics of the audition, such as full general age, gender, education, religion, and culture, too as to what groups the audition members belong. Additionally, learning almost the values, attitudes, and behavior of the members of your audience volition allow you to anticipate and plan your message.

Finding Mutual Ground by Taking Perspective

You want to analyze your audition prior to your voice communication and so that during the speech communication you can create a link between you, the speaker, and the audience. You want to exist able to figuratively step inside the minds of audience members to understand the world from their perspectives. Through this process, you can find common footing with your audience, which allows you to align your message with what the audition already knows or believes.

Gathering and Interpreting Information

Audience analysis involves gathering and interpreting information about the recipients of oral, written, or visual communication. In that location are very simple methods for conducting an audience analysis, such every bit interviewing a small-scale group about its knowledge or attitudes or using more than involved methods of analyzing demographic studies of relevant segments of the population. Yous may also find it useful to look at sociological studies of different historic period groups or cultural groups. You might as well apply a questionnaire or rating scale to collect data about the basic demographic information and opinions of your target audience. These examples do not form an all-inclusive list of methods to analyze your audience, but they can aid y'all obtain a general agreement of how you can learn well-nigh your audience. After because all the known factors, a profile of the intended audience can be created, allowing you to speak in a manner that is understood by the intended audience.

Practical Benefits for the Speaker

Agreement who makes up your target audience will allow you to carefully plan your message and adapt what you say to the level of understanding and background of the listeners. Two practical benefits of conducting an audience assay are (1) to prevent you from saying the wrong thing, such as telling a joke which offends, and (2) to assistance you speak to your audience in a language they sympathise about things that interest them. Your oral communication will be more successful if you can create a bulletin that informs and engages your audience.

What to Look For

Analyze the audition to find the mix of ages, genders, sexual orientations, educational levels, religions, cultures, ethnicities, and races.

Learning Objectives

Examine your audience based on demographics

Key Takeaways

Fundamental Points

A speaker should look at his or her ain values, beliefs, attitudes, and biases that may influence his or her perception of others.
Guard confronting egocentrism. A speaker must non regard his or her own opinions or interests equally being the nearly important or valid.
Look at others to sympathize their background, attitudes, and beliefs.
Focus on audience demographics such as historic period, gender, sexual orientation, pedagogy, organized religion, and other relevant population characteristics to clarify the audition.
The depth of the audition analysis depends of the size of the intended audience and the method of delivery.

Cardinal Terms

egocentrism: Preoccupation with one'south own internal world; the belief that ane'south own opinions or interests are the most important or valid.
demographics: The characteristics of population such as historic period, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, education; classification of the characteristics of the people.

Expect Inward to Uncover Blinders

A public speaker should turn her mental magnifying glass inwards to examine the values, beliefs, attitudes, and biases that may influence her perception of others. The speaker should employ this mental picture to look at the audience and view the world from the audience's perspective. By looking at the audience, the speaker understands their reality.

Magnifying Glass: Speakers should use a metaphorical magnifying glass to examine their values, behavior, and attitudes.

When the speaker views the audience only through her mental perception, she is likely to engage in egocentrism. Egocentrism is characterized by the preoccupation with one's own internal world. Egocentrics regard themselves and their own opinions or interests as being the almost important or valid. Egoistic people are unable to fully empathize or cope with other people's opinions and a reality that is different from what they are ready to accept.

Understanding Audience Background, Attitudes, and Beliefs

Public speakers must wait at who their audience is, their background, attitudes, and beliefs. The speaker should attempt to reach the most authentic and constructive analysis of her audience within a reasonable amount of fourth dimension. For example, speakers can assess the demographics of her audience. Demographics are detailed accounts of human being population characteristics and usually rendered as statistical population segments.

For an analysis of audition demographics for a speech communication, focus on the aforementioned characteristics studied in sociology. Audiences and populations comprise groups of people represented by different historic period groups that:

Are of the same or mixed genders
Have experienced the same events
Have the same or dissimilar sexual orientation
Have unlike educational attainment
Participate in unlike religions
Represent different cultures, ethnicities, or races

Speakers assess the audience'southward attitude – a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, issue, activities, or ideas – toward a specific topic or purpose. The attitudes of the audience may vary from extremely negative to extremely positive, or completely ambivalent. By examining the preexisting behavior of the audience regarding the speech's general topic or particular purpose, speakers have the ability to persuade the audition members to buy into the speaker'southward argument. This can as well assist with spoken communication preparation.

Tips for the Speaker

The depth of the audience analysis depends of the size of the intended audience and method of commitment. Speakers employ dissimilar methods to become familiar with the background, attitudes, and beliefs of audiences in different environments and using various mediums (e.g., videoconferencing, phone, etc). For a small audience, the speaker tin simply speak with them in a concrete environment. Nevertheless, the speaker is addressing a larger audience or speaking via teleconferencing or webcasting tools, information technology may exist useful to collect data via surveys or questionnaires.

What to Practice with Your Cognition

Use knowledge almost your audience to step into their minds, create an imaginary scenario, and test your ideas.

Learning Objectives

Identify with your audience by adopting their perspective

Key Takeaways

Fundamental Points

A successful speaker is able to step outside her own perceptual framework to sympathise the world as it is perceived by members of her audition.
The speaker engages in a process of first encoding his or her ideas from thoughts into words, and then forming a message to be delivered to a group of listeners, or audience. The audience members attempt to decode what the speaker is saying so that they can understand it.
The ameliorate the speaker knows the members of the audience beforehand, the meliorate the speaker can encode a message in a way that the audience tin decode successfully.
One of the well-nigh useful strategies for adapting your topic and message to your audience is to use the process of identification to detect common basis with them.
Yous can use your analysis to create a theoretical, imagined audience of individuals from the diverse backgrounds you lot have discovered in your audience analysis. Then you can decide whether or not the content will appeal to individuals within that audience.

Key Terms

encode: to plough one's ideas into spoken language in order to transmit them to listeners
message: the verbal and nonverbal components of language, sent to the receiver by the sender, that convey an idea
Decode: to translate the sender's spoken idea/message into something the receiver understands by using his or her cognition of language based on personal experience

Identifying with the listeners

Stride in to the minds of your listeners and see if you can identify with them. A successful speaker engages in perspective-taking. While preparing her speech, the speaker steps outside her own perceptual framework to understand the world every bit it is perceived past members of the audience. When the speaker takes an audience-centered approach to speech preparation, she focuses on the audience and how it will respond to what is being said. In essence, the speaker wants to mentally adopt the perspective of members of the audience in order to see the world every bit the audience members see it.

Encoding and Decoding

The speaker engages a process of encoding his or her ideas from thoughts into words, and of forming a message which is and so delivered to an audience. The audition members so attempt to decode what the speaker is saying then that they can understand it. To amend imagine this process, consider the example of encoding and decoding as it applies to the idea of a tree. I know that my audience is in New England and that they are familiar with oak trees. I use the word tree to encode my idea, and considering my audience has experienced like trees, they decode the word tree in the style that I intended. Nonetheless, I may exist thinking nearly a tree (a palm tree) that is in Hawaii, where I used to live, when I utilise the discussion tree to encode my thought. Unfortunately, when my audience decodes my word at present, they are notwithstanding thinking well-nigh the oak tree and volition not meet my palm tree. The audience no longer shares my perspective of the globe or my experience with trees.

A picture that shows the process of encoding and decoding. The speaker encodes the message (thinks of a tree). When he says "tree" he sends the message to the other person. The listener hears the message and decodes it (hears the word "tree" and then has a visual of a tree).

Encoding Advice: I speaker encodes a message and sends the message. The listener hears the message and decodes it.

Finding Common Basis

The more than you observe out virtually your audition, the more you can suit your message to the interests, values, beliefs, and language level of the audition. Once you collect data near your audience, you are set to summarize your findings and select the language and structure that is all-time suited to your particular audience. You are on a journeying to find common footing in order to place with your audience. One of the virtually useful strategies for adapting your topic and message to your audience is to use the process of identification. What do y'all and your audience take in common? And, conversely, how are you different? What ideas or examples in your oral communication can your audience identify with?

Creating a Theoretical, Imagined Audience

Create a theoretical, imagined situation to examination your view of an audition for practice. Yous can employ your analysis to create what is chosen a "theoretical, universal audience. " The universal audience is an imagined audience that serves equally a test for the speaker. Imagine in your mind a composite audience that contains individuals from the diverse backgrounds y'all have discovered in your audience assay. Next, decide whether or not the content of your spoken language would appeal to individuals within that audience. What words or examples will the audience understand and what will they not sympathise? What terms well-nigh your subject will you need to define or explain for this audience? How different are the values and opinions you want your audience to have from the present attitudes and beliefs they may concur?

Tips for the Speaker

In summary, use your noesis of the audition to conform your speech accordingly. Adopt the perspective of the audience in order to identify with them, and test out your ideas with an imagined audition composed of people with the background you take discovered through your research.