COMM108: Ch.6

Topic Selection: Expertise

The audience needs to believe that the speaker knows what they are talking about

Topic Selection: Passion

You must care about the topic because the audience can tell

Audience Analysis

1. Demographic Analysis

2.Situational Analysis

3. Psychological Analysis

Demographic Analysis

Study age, sex ratio, culture, race, socio-economic status

Situational Analysis

Think about the time, audience size, location, occasion

Situational Analysis: Time

consider the amount of time you have to speak, and the time of day

Situational Analysis: size of audience

smaller audience: more entitled to ask question, deeper content

larger audience: less likely to engage you, keep content shallow

Situational Analysis: Location

Consider what you have access to and if it is in door or outdoors

Situational Analysis: Occasion

This can impact the tone of the message

Psychological Analysis

Attitudes, values, beliefs

Psychological Analysis: Attitudes

Reflect degrees of favor or disfavor for people, objects, places, events

Do they like it or not like it, how much do you like it or dislike it?

EX: Bad diet consists of food I really like

Psychological Analysis: Values

Determine our choices of right v. wrong

Good v. bad

Ethical v. unethical

EX: Bad diet isn't good for you

Psychological Analysis: Beliefs

Reflects what the audience holds to be true or false in their world

EX: are there spirits or ghosts

Use this information to:

1. build relationship between your audience and our topic

2. build a relationship between ourselves and our audience