ANALYZING THE

AUDIENCE
Public speaking & Persuasion
This chapter focuses on how to analyze the audience when
doing a speech. It talks about the importance and the
impact of the speech if you, as a speaker, are an audience
centered.
audience-centeredness
– keeping the audience foremost in mind every step of
speech preparation and presentation.
Being audience-centered does not involve compromising your
beliefs to get a favorable response. Nor does it mean using devious,
unethical tactics to achieve your goal. You can remain true to
yourself and speak ethically while adapting your message to the
needs of your listeners.
◦ To whom am I speaking?
◦ What do I want them to know, believe, or do as a
result of my speech?
Questions to ask
◦ What is the most effective way of composing and yourself about:
presenting my speech to accomplish that aim?
 Effective speakers seek to create a bond with Communication scholars call this process
their listeners by emphasizing common values, identification.
goals, and experiences.
YOUR CLASSMATES AS AN
AUDIENCE
Each of your classmates is a real person with real ideas, attitudes,
and feelings. Your speech class offers an enormous opportunity to
inform and persuade other people.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
AUDIENCES
Even when people do pay attention, they do not process a speaker’s
message exactly as the speaker intends. Auditory perception is
always selective

Paul Simon’s classic song The Boxer, people hear what they want to
hear and disregard the rest.
What do people want to hear? Very simply, they usually want
to hear about things that are meaningful to them.

People are egocentric.

Egocentric- the tendency of people to be concerned above all

with their own values, beliefs, and well-being.

They pay closest attention to messages that affect their own

values, beliefs, and well-being.
As Harry Emerson Fosdick, the great preacher, once said:
“There is nothing that people are so interested in as themselves,
their own problems, and the way to solve them. The fact is … the
primary starting point of all public speaking”.
KNOW
YOUR
AUDIENCE.
What do these psychological
principles mean to you as a speaker?

1. They mean your listeners will hear and judge what you say on the basis of what they already know and
believe
2. They mean you must relate your message to your listeners
“People only understand
things in terms of their
experience”, which means that
to communicate with them,
“you must get inside their
experience”. -Saul Alinsky