What do you do when you want to do everything? | PsychologiesAnalyzing your Audience
by Stacy DeGeer
Introduction:
What is Audience Analysis?
Audience analysis is the process of examining information about your listeners.
That analysis
helps you to adapt your message so that your listeners will respond as you wish.&&
In everyday conversations you adapt your message to your audience.
For example, if you went to
a party the night before, you would explain the party differently to your friends and family.
To your best
friend you might say, "We partied all night and there were tons of people there."
To your mother you
might say, "Oh, I had fun with my friends."
And to your significant other you might say, "It was fun, I
had a great bonding time with my friends."
In each of these situations, you are adapting your message to
your listening audience.
There are three phases in audience analysis:
adaptation before, during, and after the speech.
I. Audience Analysis - Adapting to your audience before you speak
When we analyze our audience,
there are t demographic analysis,
attitudinal analysis, and
environmental analysis.
Examples of Demographic Analysis Questions:
What is the age of people in the audience?
Are there significant cultural differences
within the audience?
What is the educational level of the
How many males and females are there in
the audience
Demographic Analysis
involves age, gender, culture,
ethnicity, race, religion, and
educational level.
noted more than 2,000 years ago that few things affect a person's outlook more than his or her age.
college students we watch the same kinds of shows and listen to the same types of music and have a
common history.
remember "The Office," Back to the Future,
Lady Gaga, and the Iraq War.
These are all things that we have in common.
If I were to do a speech about any one of these topics, I
know that I may not have to explain who or what to an audience of my own age.
Age is a very important
factor and can be very helpful in picking a topic.
Gender is another characteristic.
It is important to find out the ratio of men to women in the
Also, make sure that you do not use any sexist language, stereotypes or make jokes about gender.
If you were to insult men in front of a class of 12 men, then in most cases these 12 men are not going to
listen to you for the rest of your speech.
You may have also lost your credibility.
Culture is the shared knowledge, behavior, attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms of a group.
very important to be sensitive to students of other culture's feelings.
You may do or say something that
may offend them. Ethnicity is a person's national or religious heritage.
There may be a student from
China Town in Chicago, or a student from Little Italy in New York.
A person's race is a person's
biological heritage.
It is important to learn as much as possible about these students before your speech,
so you are sure not to offend them or anger them.
Another touchy subject is religion.
Be very careful when you speak about different religions
because people feel very strongly about their beliefs.
And finally, the education background of your listeners can help your choice of vocabulary,
language style, and your use of examples.
This can help you select and narrow your topic.
Attitudinal Analysis
the audience's attitudes, beliefs, and
An attitude defines what a
person likes or dislikes.
choose a topic, it is important to find out
your audience's attitudes toward the
If you are doing a speech on rap,
does your audience like rap.&
A belief is
what you believe to be true or false.
may believe that rap is destroying the minds of young teenagers.&
And a value is "a person's beliefs or
standards."
You may value the future and the young minds that will be running the future.
It is very
important to find out before your speech what people's attitudes are about your subject.
If you know
these three things, it will be much easier to bring your audience to the responses that you want.&&
Sample Attitudinal Analysis Questions&&&&&&&
What are the audience's beliefs, and&attitudes,
toward the topic?
What are the relevant audience values and&motives in regard to this
Environmental Analysis
is finding
out things like the seating arrangement, the number of people likely to
attend, and the room lighting.& The way the seats are arranged will
affec the audience's
It is also important to know how
many people will be there for the speech.
the way the room is lighted will affect the way
the audience responds.
If it is dark and the
speaker is showing overheads, there will not be
conversation.
But if the room is light and open,
the audience may feel more free to talk.
seating arrangement, the number of people and
the room lighting are all factors that will affect
the speech.
Sample Environmental Analysis Questions
How many will be in the audience?
How will the seating be arranged?
Will there be a podium?& a microphone?
Will there be noise and distractions?
Will I have access to
A.V. equipment?
Questionnaires and Interviewing
There are many ways to obtain the answers to these questions in each section.
gather information by handing out questionnaires or by interviewing your fellow students with open ended and closed ended questions.
An open-ended question is unrestricted.
For example:
What are your feelings about high school nurses distributing free condoms?
This answer could be very lengthy and will be very different in each person you ask.
There are also
closed ended questions which are true-false, agree or disagree, yes-no, or multiple choice.
For example:
Do you think the school nurses should be able to distribute condoms to students?
Circle Yes or No.
This question gives a straight answer and does not leave room for discussion or other details.
Examples of Questionnaires and Interview Questions
for a Speech on School Prayer
Questionnaire Example
1. Sex: circle --& Male& or& Female
2. Educational Level:&&
_________________________
3. Religious Affiliation: &________________________
4. Did you attend a public or private high school:
5. Do you believe in prayer in school:
&& circle --
6. What are some reasons prayer should be allowed in
school :& __________________________________
7. List some reasons why prayer should not be allowed in
schools:& _____________________________
8. Do you attend church services:& circle one
Christmas?/Easter
Sample Interview Questions
1. What is the highest level of education that you have
completed?
2. What religious affiliation do you belong to?
3. Did you attend a public or private high school?
4. Do you believe that students and faculty should have
the right to pray in school? Why?&
If no, would it anger you to see classmates praying at
5. How regularly do you attend church?
6. Do you talk with your classmates about your religious
7. Are you friends with people of different religious
backgrounds?
Informative versus Persuasive
When gathering information, it is important
to keep in mind the objective of the speech.
are writing a persuasive speech, it is important to find out the audience's interest level in the topic, their knowledge, and attitude.
In an informative speech you are not trying to change their attitude, but you
still should know it.
The interest level and how it relates to each person in the audience.
People are very egocentric and they
have to hear things that are meaningful to them.
The audience's knowledge is what level they are at and how much information you need to give to them.
And attitude reflects the audience's likes or dislike for the subject.
If you are writing a persuasive
speech it is critical that you obtain this information before you present your speech.
Audience Analysis - Adapting to your audience as you speak
When you are giving your speech you have to adapt to your audience if you can tell they are not
listening or paying attention.
Some nonverbal audience cues are:
Eye Contact- Is your audience looking at you?
Facial Expression- Are they responsive to your
Restless movement- Are they restless?&
Is there a lot of fidgeting, shuffling, and general
body movement?
Nonverbal responsiveness- DO they respond to your
questions? Do they laugh at the right times? Do they nod or shake
their heads?
Verbal Responsiveness- Do they respond verbally
when appropriate?
If you are not getting a positive response
from your audience there are things you can do:
Try to talk more to the audience
Tell a story.
Use an example.
Remind your listeners of the motivation.
Eliminate some boring facts or statistics.
Use appropriate humor..
Pause for dramatic effect.
Ask for feedback or ask questions.
Remind your audience of your credibility
Audience Analysis - Analyzing your audience after you speak
After you speak there are many ways that you can tell how your audience responded to your
There are nonverbal, verbal, survey, and behavioral responses.
Nonverbal Responses examples:
Did the audience applaud?
How did they applaud?
Loud or Soft
What kind of facial expressions did they have?
Smiling or Nodding
Verbal Responses - What did the audience say to you after the speech?
&"Good job!"&
"That was really interesting?"&
"I have a question about . ."
Survey Responses - Conduct a survey and find out what people liked or learned about your speech.
will allow you to gauge your listening results.
Behavioral Responses - If your purpose was to persuade your audience to do something, their behavior
after the speech can tell you if you did in fact persuade them.
If you were persuading your audience to
vote at the next election, you could ask around to see how many people did actually vote.
Conclusion:
There are three phases in audience analysis.
The first is adapting to your audience before you
There are three ways to do this: demographic analysis, attitudinal analysis, and environmental
Demographic analysis involves age, gender, culture, ethnicity, race, religion, and educational
Attitudinal analysis addresses the audience's attitudes, beliefs, and values.
And environmental
analysis is the importance of seating arrangements, audience size, and room lighting, etc.
The second phase is adapting to your audience as you speak.
By attending the nonverbal cues,
you may use a variety of things to bring attention back to your audience.
And the last stage is analyzing your audience after you speak.
There are nonverbal, verbal,
survey, and behavioral responses.
The last three phases may help you to adapt your message to your audience better.
People are egocentric, they will only listen if it pertains to them.
So, take some time to
adapt your message!
Steven A. and Susan J. Beebe, Public Speaking An Audience-Centered Approach
(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997) 79.
Stephen E. Lucas, The Art of Public Speaking (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1995)
David B. Guralnik, Webster's New World Dictionary
(New York: Warner Books, Inc.,
1984) 660.
last updated 2/2/2003&