Audience Analysis

Summary

This transcript discusses the importance of audience analysis in public speaking. It explains that understanding your audience's demographics, interests, and knowledge level is crucial for adapting your speech effectively. The speaker emphasizes the need to connect with the audience, answer their questions, and tailor your language, sources, and delivery to their specific needs. Various methods for conducting audience analysis, such as asking liaisons, online research, direct observation, and surveys, are also explored to ensure a successful public speaking engagement.

Takeaways

• 😀 The speaker's father, a pastor, had a talent for making friends and engaging with people from diverse backgrounds, which served as an early lesson in audience analysis.
• 🗣️ Audience analysis in public speaking involves gathering information about the audience to adapt the speech accordingly without changing the core message.
• 👥 The purpose of audience analysis is to understand the audience's attributes and motivations to connect with them, answer their questions, and craft the speech effectively.
• 🔍 Demographic analysis considers factors like age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and group membership to understand the audience's composition.
• 🧠 Specific analysis delves into the audience's interests, knowledge level, attitudes, beliefs, and values to tailor the speech content and style.
• 🌐 Situational analysis looks at the context of the speech, including whether the audience is captive or voluntary, the size of the audience, time constraints, and the physical environment.
• 🎯 Selecting a target audience involves determining who within the broader audience the speech aims to reach most effectively.
• 📋 Preparing for the speech situation involves planning for the physical setup, the tone of the event, and the expectations of the audience.
• 🤝 Establishing a connection with the audience is crucial for effective communication, and understanding the audience helps in identifying common ground.
• ⏰ Time management is key in public speaking, and audience analysis can help determine the appropriate length and pacing of the speech.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the transcript?

The main theme of the transcript is audience analysis in the context of public speaking, emphasizing the importance of understanding the audience to effectively adapt and deliver a speech.

Why is it crucial to analyze the audience before giving a speech?

Analyzing the audience is crucial because it allows the speaker to adapt their speech to the audience's background, beliefs, knowledge level, and interests, thereby enhancing the speech's effectiveness and relevance.

What are the different types of audience analysis mentioned in the transcript?

The transcript mentions demographic analysis, specific analysis, and situational analysis as the different types of audience analysis.

How does a speaker use demographic analysis to prepare for a speech?

A speaker uses demographic analysis to understand the age, gender, ethnic and cultural background, socioeconomic status, religion, political affiliation, and group membership of the audience to tailor the speech accordingly.

What is specific analysis in the context of audience analysis?

Specific analysis refers to understanding the audience's interest, knowledge level, attitudes, beliefs, values, multicultural elements, and cognition specific to the topic and context of the speech.

Why is it important to select a target audience when preparing a speech?

Selecting a target audience is important to focus the speech effectively, ensuring that the message resonates with the intended group and meets their needs and expectations.

How can a speaker gather information about their audience before giving a speech?

A speaker can gather information about their audience by asking the liaison, conducting online research, direct observation, making inferences, or conducting audience surveys and interviews.

What is the purpose of adapting one's language and delivery during a speech based on the audience?

Adapting language and delivery based on the audience ensures that the speech is accessible, engaging, and meaningful to the listeners, fostering better communication and understanding.

How does knowing the audience's knowledge level about the topic affect the speech content?

Knowing the audience's knowledge level helps the speaker to determine the complexity of the content, the necessity of explaining terms or concepts, and the depth of information required to educate or inform the audience effectively.

What is the role of situational analysis in audience analysis?

Situational analysis involves understanding the physical environment, audience size, time constraints, audience expectations, and the rhetorical situation to adjust the speech's delivery, content, and approach to suit the specific context.

Outlines

00:00

🗣️ Audience Analysis in Public Speaking

The speaker shares a personal anecdote about their father, a pastor, who effortlessly made friends and engaged in conversations with diverse people. This story serves as an introduction to the concept of audience analysis in public speaking. The speaker explains that audience analysis involves gathering information about the audience to tailor the speech effectively. It's not about changing the message but adjusting the language, delivery, and visual aids to suit the audience's background, beliefs, knowledge level, and other attributes. The purpose of this analysis is to connect with the audience, answer their inherent question 'What's in it for me?', and craft the speech to meet their needs and interests. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding the audience to select an appropriate topic, use the right language, choose credible sources, and adapt the delivery style.

05:02

📊 Demographic and Specific Analysis of an Audience

The speaker delves into the types of audience analysis, starting with demographic analysis, which considers factors like age, gender, ethnicity, culture, socioeconomic status, and group membership. Understanding these demographics helps in making initial assumptions about the audience's characteristics. The speaker also discusses specific analysis, which focuses on the audience's interests, knowledge level, attitudes, beliefs, values, and multicultural elements. This type of analysis is crucial for adjusting the speech content and style to resonate with the audience. Additionally, the speaker touches on situational analysis, considering factors like whether the audience is captive or voluntary, the size of the audience, time constraints, and the rhetorical situation, which can greatly influence the speech's approach and content.

10:04

🔍 Methods for Conducting Audience Analysis

The speaker outlines various methods for conducting audience analysis. These include consulting with the liaison who invited the speaker, conducting online research about the group, direct observation of the audience or similar groups, making inferences based on known information, and conducting audience surveys or interviews if time and resources permit. The speaker stresses the importance of knowing the audience to avoid potential missteps and to deliver an effective speech. The speaker concludes by encouraging further questions and dialogue via email and emphasizes the need for public speakers to understand their audience to prepare impactful speeches.

Keywords

💡Audience Analysis

Audience analysis is the process of gathering information about the audience to adapt communication accordingly. In the context of the video, it is crucial for public speaking to tailor the speech to the audience's characteristics, ensuring effective engagement. The video script mentions that audience analysis helps in adjusting language, delivery, and visual aids to suit the audience's background, beliefs, and knowledge level.

💡Public Speaking

Public speaking refers to the act of addressing an audience, typically to inform, influence, or entertain. The video's theme revolves around the importance of audience analysis in public speaking, emphasizing how understanding the audience can enhance the speech's impact. The script uses public speaking as a primary context to discuss the practical application of audience analysis.

💡Egocentric

Egocentricity is the human tendency to be primarily concerned with one's own interests. The script explains that people are naturally egocentric, which is why speakers must answer the question 'What's in it for me?' from the audience's perspective. This concept is used to highlight the need to connect with the audience by showing them the relevance of the speech to their interests.

💡Demographic Analysis

Demographic analysis involves examining the statistical and behavioral characteristics of a population. In the video script, demographic analysis is a type of audience analysis that looks at factors like age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status to understand the audience better. This information helps speakers to make informed decisions about speech content, style, and delivery.

💡Group Membership

Group membership refers to an individual's affiliation with a particular group, which can influence their beliefs and values. The script discusses how knowing the audience's group membership, such as belonging to the NRA or a school PTA, can shape the speaker's approach to the topic, ensuring alignment with the group's interests and values.

💡Psychological Analysis

Psychological analysis considers the audience's attitudes, beliefs, and values that can affect their perception of a topic. The video script suggests that understanding the psychological aspects of the audience is important for speakers to connect with them on a deeper level and to anticipate their reactions to the speech content.

💡Cultural Elements

Cultural elements refer to the characteristics of a particular culture that influence communication styles and preferences. The script mentions the importance of considering multicultural elements in audience analysis, such as language and ethnocentrism, to ensure that the speech resonates with the audience's cultural background.

💡Situational Analysis

Situational analysis examines the context and circumstances surrounding an event or interaction. In the video, situational analysis is discussed as a way to understand the audience's expectations, the physical environment of the speech, and the time constraints, which can all influence how the speech should be structured and delivered.

💡Rhetorical Situation

A rhetorical situation is the context in which communication occurs, including the audience, the speaker's purpose, and the context. The video script touches on the importance of understanding the rhetorical situation to adapt the speech to different settings, such as a casual gathering, a professional environment, or a solemn occasion like a funeral.

💡Credible Sources

Credible sources are those that are trusted and reliable for providing accurate information. The script discusses the need for speakers to select credible sources that will be believable and impactful to the audience, which is part of crafting the speech to meet the audience's expectations and enhance the speech's credibility.

Highlights

Importance of audience analysis in public speaking

Definition of audience analysis as gathering information about the audience to adapt speech accordingly

Adapting speech without changing the focus or stance on a topic

Purpose of audience analysis is to identify with audience members and understand their motivations

Answering the audience's question 'What's in it for me?'

Crafting speech to the audience in terms of topic, language, sources, and delivery

Selecting a target audience within a broader audience

Preparing for the speech situation by understanding the physical environment and audience expectations

Types of audience analysis include demographic, specific, and situational analysis

Demographic analysis includes age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, political affiliation, and group membership

Specific analysis focuses on the audience's interest, knowledge level, attitudes, beliefs, values, and multicultural elements

Situational analysis considers whether the audience is captive or voluntary, audience size, time restraints, and speech goals

Rhetorical situation analysis involves understanding the context, tone, and formality of the speech setting

Methods to gather audience information include asking the liaison, online research, direct observation, making inferences, and conducting surveys

The importance of knowing your audience to avoid misunderstandings and to deliver an effective speech

Transcripts

My dad is a super friendly guy, and growing up,

it always entertained me

quite a bit to go out with him, and he would just make friends

wherever he was, that

he just loved to meet people,

play cards and just hang out with them in coffee shops or just whatever.

And he would just sit down and he would become your friend immediately.

And so you'd start talking and people started telling stories.

And some of them might be a little racier.

They might use some language or something and then inevitably gets ranting.

So what do you do?

They would ask him, and he would say, Oh, I'm a pastor.

And then immediately it was, Oh my goodness from the crowd.

What if I said, What have I done?

How embarrass myself, you know?

And he would assure them, everything is fine, you know,

nothing to worry about what he does, and he's just getting to know them. But

but that's the reaction he would get a lot of times because folks

didn't really consider who's my audience, my telling this to the right

audience or something I'm going to regret later.

This was really my first introduction to audience analysis,

and we're going to talk about it in the context of public speaking

and certainly applies in other areas of life as well.

But for our purposes today, we're going to focus on

audience analysis in public speaking.

So what is audience analysis?

What's just gathering information about the audience

so that you can adapt your speech accordingly?

So first of all, we're just gathering information.

We're finding out who is this audience who's who's this comprised of?

What are their what's their background, what's their beliefs,

what their what's their knowledge level and so forth?

And then we're going to adapt our speech accordingly.

That does not mean we change everything around that we

that we change the focus

of our speech necessarily or that we change our our stance on a topic.

But there are ways that we can adjust our language,

our delivery, our visual aids or the level that we're speaking at.

In regards to this topic,

are these beginners in this area or are they experts in this area?

We need to know all those things so that we can adapt our speech

accordingly, and that's what happens in audience analysis in a general sense.

So the purpose of audience audience analysis,

first of all, why we do audience analysis, why is this important?

We want to learn the attributes and motivations

of the audience in order to do a couple of different things.

So we want to learn about the audience for a couple of reasons.

first, we want to be able to identify with the audience members.

We want to be able to connect with them in some way and and demonstrate

that we understand them and that we are really there

in informing or persuading them for their benefit or whatever.

So we want to establish that sort of connection with them.

What's something that we have in common

that we can use as a source of connection to identify with the audience?

Next, we want to answer to the audience's question What's in it for me

with them, right?

What's in it for me?

People are essentially egocentric.

That's not a negative thing.

It's just the way human nature works.

We are most concerned

with those things that correct or that that affect us most directly.

That's what we mean by egocentrism.

So the audience is going to be asking, what's in this for me?

Why should I care? Why should I listen?

So we need to know the audience so that we can figure that out

and let them know the answer to what's in it for them.

We want to craft our speech to the audience, too.

That's another reason we need to know the audience.

We want to craft it to the audience in a variety of ways, including our topic.

What topic are we selecting and presenting to this audience?

Is it something that's going to be of interest to them?

And that's a whole other discussion

that we've had in a separate video, but we need to know the audience

so that we can select an appropriate topic.

We also, as I mentioned before, we need to know what type of language

we should use and I'm not talking about

should I deliver the speech in English or Spanish or Chinese?

And if you have that ability, that's amazing.

But what I'm really talking about is,

at what level should I be speaking to this audience?

How can I use words that will that they will understand

and that will have meaning to them that will connect with them?

So language choices are very important, but we want to craft that specifically

to the audience.

We need to craft our sources to the audience.

What sources can we use that are going to be credible?

They're going to be believable, that are going to have an impact

on that audience.

And then what about our delivery right

up here?

Our delivery, we need to craft our delivery to this audience as well.

Think about the elements of delivery

for the speech as it relates to the specific audience.

So we need to learn the attributes and motivations of the audience

for all of these reasons.

That's really an important part of audience analysis.

We also need to be able to select the target audience for our speech.

If we have an all white audience and a broad audience,

there's a pretty good chance we're not going to build reach

everyone all the time.

So we need to determine,

OK, who is it in this audience specifically that I'm speaking to?

It's not that we're going to exclude intentionally anybody,

but who is that I really, really want to reach with this audience.

Who am I targeting?

So we need to know the audience in order to select a target audience.

And then we

need to be able to prepare accordingly for the speech situation.

We need to be able to plan for where is the speech going to be delivered?

What's the physical environment going to be like?

Am I going to be up on a stage with a microphone?

Am I going to be wandering around the room?

I'm going to be outdoors some.

So what's the speech situation there?

What's the general tone?

Is this an after dinner speech?

Is it a eulogy at a funeral? Is it?

You know, we need to be able to plan for all of these elements.

And so to do that, we need to perform an audience analysis.

So there are a couple of different types of audience analysis that we can perform.

We're going to start by talking about demographic analysis,

and this really just means looking at the demographic makeup of your audience.

It includes elements such as age, what's the age of this audience?

What is the predominant sex or gender of this audience?

Is there, or is it a mixed audience? You know,

what's the ethnic and cultural background,

as well as the socioeconomic status of this of this audience?

These different types of elements socioeconomic status?

By that, we mean things like income, occupation and education.

That's what makes up the socioeconomic status.

We need to know what these are just checking off boxes.

You know, what's the predominant age of the audience predominant, you know,

socioeconomic status of the audience so we can begin making some beginning

determinations about those things we mentioned.

Additional demographic analysis would come in the form of things like religion,

political affiliation and group membership.

It's important to know if I'm giving a speech to the NHRA

that it's going to be different than a speech.

I'm probably going to give to the Boy Scouts, right?

Or to the PTA, my local school or to the Chamber of Commerce.

These people, first of all through their group membership,

tells us something about the audience right for giving a speech to the NRA.

You can assume that the audience is in favor of gun ownership of of the ability

of people to own guns privately and have less restriction for that.

So how does that shape my topic, you know?

And how does that shaped my stance on not that I get,

not that I'm going to totally change my mind.

If I'm if I'm for gun control and I'm speaking, then all right.

I'm not necessarily just going to say, Oh, well,

now I'm not going to be for gun control.

That's what we're talking about.

But I need to approach it differently when I'm speaking to the NRA

than if I was speaking to a group that was in favor of gun control

that affects all those elements and understanding that group membership

gives us that ability to connect and shape our speech specifically.

So we conduct demographic analysis to to just have some general broad demographics

of who's making up the audience that we're going to be speaking to.

We can also do what we call specific analysis specific to this audience

and things like

what is the audience's interest and knowledge level of the topic

that I'm speaking about.

Again, if I'm speaking to a room of people who are experts in that field,

then I start at a higher level

and I approach it differently than if I'm speaking to a group of people

who don't know anything about what I'm talking about.

I'm going to, in that instance,

have to break it down a little more, simply start at the beginning

and determine how far I can get them right.

So we need to know what's the only interest and knowledge

in that topic to begin with.

Then we look at some psychological things the attitudes, beliefs

and values of that audience and how that's going to impact their

view of

that and their perspective of that topic and and their stance.

So we look at the psychology of the audience as much as possible.

We look at the multicultural elements, what's,

you know, particular language that might be impactful for this audience?

What about their cognition?

What about the elements of ethnocentrism and that and the general communication

styles of this particular culture?

So we're looking at a variety of things like that when we look at specific

analysis, things that are specific to this audience.

Then we also look at things

like I said before, the situation is important.

We need to understand the situation.

first of all, is this a captive audience?

Is this an audience that is forced to be there?

Do they have a choice or if they're showing up out of interest,

then that puts a different spin on things, right?

But if it's a captive audience, you really probably have to

work a lot harder to pull that audience in and to make it of interest to them

because they're there because they have to be.

So we want to understand that we want to know about the number of audience members.

How big is this group?

And that's going to affect the type of visual aids we use is going to affect,

you know, are we are we tethered to a microphone in some way

or are we going to be able to move around should we do group activities?

So the number of audience members is an important part of a situational analysis.

We need to look at the time restraints.

Am I am I speaking for ten minutes or am I speaking for two hours?

That makes a big difference and the expectations of the audience

in that regard, too.

If I'm expected to speak for half an hour and I'm still up there after an hour,

the audience is going to lose interest, right?

And if I cut her off too soon, then some of the audience may be grateful.

But they're also going to wonder, you know, how prepared

was I or was I just not, you know, with it that day.

So we need to consider the time restraints and that situational analysis.

We need to think about the expectations of our speech goals.

What is it that we're trying to accomplish?

What is it that we hope the audience will gain from this?

And what's the best way for us to

to get there based on the situation that we're in based on that context?

And then the rhetorical situation touched on this before as well.

Are we speaking to a group of second graders?

I was.

To a class of second graders, or are we conducting a training

at work of some sort or some sort of professional environment?

Or are we delivering a eulogy at a funeral?

Those are very different situations that require very different approaches.

Obviously, different content and all that kind of thing.

So we need to understand that about the situation.

What kind of rhetorical situation is this?

Is it a lighthearted one?

Is it a serious one?

Is it a professional one?

Is a little more casual?

So we're going to conduct

these different types of analysis, demographic

specific and situation where we need to understand these things,

but how are we going to find this out?

How are we going to get this information?

What we're going to conduct some analysis in a variety of different ways.

There are lots of ways you can do that, but some of the more common ones are

first of all and ask the liaison who invited you to speak.

Somehow, you got connected with this group and they asked you to come for lead

and just show up on their doorstep.

I'm going to speak to you today.

Somebody asked you to be there so you can ask that person

who's going to be there?

What's what's the makeup of this audience?

What's the demographics and what's the setup going to be when I'm there?

The situation?

What's the

the physical environment going to be like and what are the expectations and time

that you can connect with that person who's the liaison

and who invited you to speak and find out some of that information?

You can, you know, this isn't very scientific,

but you can get online and do a little research.

If it's a group, maybe they have a website that you could look at

where you can Google, you know who makes up this group or, you know, some

you can do some online research about these people.

You can do a direct observation if you have the ability to

go to one of their meetings before you're speaking,

maybe you're speaking at one next month.

You can go to this month's meeting

and see what happens, see what the other speakers do.

Or you can, you know, even if you're just able to show up before

it's your time to speak, that can be helpful so you can see what

the group is like, who makes up the group, what the feel of the room is.

That can all be very helpful information.

So you can conduct direct observation.

You can make some inferences.

You can make some assumptions.

If I'm speaking to the NRA, I can make some assumptions about

the makeup of that group or from speaking to the PTA.

I can make some assumptions here about the makeup of that group

and what their interests are, what their values are, things like that.

If you have the opportunity you conduct, specifically audience surveys

and interviews to gather more information, you know, if you have the time and the

and the opportunity and the ability to do so, that can be very helpful.

It can be time consuming and difficult as well.

But but you know, depending on the situation, it may well be worth it.

Whatever the situation, you want to be sure that you're conducting

that audience analysis that you know

your audience, that you're not stepping in to buy, but,

you know, crossing the streams and not knowing anything about your audience

and you come in and put your foot in your mouth, that's what you want to avoid.

So if you have questions about audience analysis or anything

related to public speaking, please feel free to email me.

I'll be happy to to chat with you via email.

And in the meantime, get out there, get to know your audience so that you

can prepare the most effective speech you can as a public speaker.