Comprehensive Notes on Ethics, Audience Analysis, and Speech Preparation

Ethics in Communication

  • Ethics is the study of moral conduct, addressing responsibilities in influencing others.
  • It involves discerning positive/negative or right/wrong actions.
  • Key aspects: Competence and character.
  • Ethics (ethos): Derived from the Greek word for character.
  • Source credibility:
    • Trust stems from a grasp of the subject, honesty, straightforwardness, and respect.

Values and Ethical Speaking

  • Values reflect our sense of right and wrong.
  • Values: Enduring judgments of what's good/bad.
  • Audience's values must be considered in ethical speech preparation.
  • Ethical speaking contributes positively to public discourse.
  • Public discourse: Speech on issues of importance to the community (e.g., race relations, immigration).
  • Ethical speech appeals to the greater good and avoids invective/personal attacks.
  • Avoid arguments targeting individuals instead of issues.

Freedom of Expression

  • Responsibly use free speech rights.
  • Freedom of expression: Right to express beliefs without censorship.
  • Protected by the First Amendment.
  • Offensive speech is protected, but unethical.
  • Hate speech: Offensive communication against various groups.
    • Based on: race, ethnicity, origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation.
  • Illegal speech:
    • Fighting words: Incite violence.
    • Speech expressing falsehoods and perjury.
    • Harmful speech: Slander affecting reputation.

Defamation and Ethical Speech

  • Liability for defamation requires reckless disregard for truth.
    • Speaking knowing falsehoods.
  • Ethical speech rests on dignity and integrity.
  • Dignity: Respectful behavior to oneself and others.
  • Integrity: Avoiding truth compromise for personal gain.

Qualities of Integrity

  • Trustworthiness: Honesty, dependability.
  • Respect: Treating audience with civility, avoiding ethnocentrism and stereotyping.
  • Responsibility: Being accountable for words.
  • Fairness: Genuinely considering all sides and acknowledging needed information.
  • Civic mindedness: Caring about the community shown in speeches and deeds.

Avoiding Plagiarism

  • Plagiarism: Using others' ideas/words without acknowledgment.
  • Unethical.
  • Orally acknowledge sources with direct quotations, fair paraphrasing, or a summary.

Copyright and Fair Use

  • Copyright: Legal protection for artistic works.
  • Permission is needed for copyrighted materials.
  • Public domain: Materials free for reproduction.
  • Fair use: Limited use of copyrighted works without permission for scholarship, criticism, news, teaching, research.
  • Creative Commons: Search for suitable materials.
    • CreativeCommons.org.

Audience Analysis

  • Audience analysis: Gathering information about audience attributes/motivations.
  • Aim: Meaningful speech preparation for audience.
  • Audience-centered perspective is crucial.
  • Investigate psychological and demographic factors.
  • Psychographics: Attitudes, beliefs, values, feelings, and opinions.

Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values

  • Attitudes: General evaluations about people/ideas.
  • Based on beliefs.
  • Beliefs: Perceptions of reality.
  • Values shape attitudes and beliefs.
  • Values: Enduring judgments shaped by culture/experience.
  • Assess listener feelings toward topic.
  • Establish commonality/identification by including them with eye contact and body movements.

Captive vs. Voluntary Audiences

  • Captive audience: Required attendance, potentially less receptive.
  • Voluntary audience: Attends by choice.

Demographic Factors

  • Demographics: Statistical characteristics of a population.
  • Analyze audience age, ethnic/cultural background, socioeconomic status, religion, political affiliation, gender/sexual orientation, group affiliations, and disability.
  • Identify target audience: Individuals most likely to be influenced.

Generational Identity and Co-culture

  • Awareness of generational identity for relevant points.
  • Co-culture: Social community with differing values/communication styles.
  • Socioeconomic status: Income, occupation, education.

Gender and Group Associations

  • Gender: Social/physical sense of sexual identity.
  • Avoid assumptions.
  • Consider group associations and disabilities.

Adapting to Diverse Audiences

  • Identify listener values to avoid ethnocentrism and deliver culturally sensitive messages.
  • Consider cultural values related to personal relationships, religion, and occupation.
  • Focus on universal values.

Tools for Learning About Your Audience

  • Conduct interviews.
  • Survey the audience (questionnaires, closed/open-ended questions).
  • Consult published sources.

Analyzing Speech Setting and Context

  • Location, time, audience size.
  • Length of speech, rhetorical situation.

Selecting a Topic and Purpose

  • Topic selection, speech purpose, narrowing topic, specific purpose, thesis.
  • Identify personal interests and consider concurrent events/controversial issues.
  • Engage with the community and avoid overused/trivial topics.

Brainstorming Techniques

  • Generate ideas by writing down topics and related thoughts.
  • Mind mapping: Diagram of category relationships.
  • Use Internet tools.

Refining and Adapting Your Topic

  • Adapt topic to general speech purpose.
  • General speech purpose answers the question, objective in speaking.
  • Informative speech: Increase awareness/understanding, define, describe, explain, or demonstrate knowledge.
  • Persuasive speech: Affect attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
  • Special occasion speech: Entertain, celebrate, commemorate, inspire, set a social agenda.
  • Includes Speeches of introduction, acceptance, and presentation.

Narrowing the Topic and Forming a Thesis

  • Narrow down topic and specific speech purpose.
  • Specific speech purpose: Action form you want to achieve with the speech.
  • Thesis statement: Concisely identifies what the speech is about.

Supporting Material

  • Good speeches: Relevant, motivating, audience-centered support.
  • Examples, stories, testimony, facts, and statistics.
  • Example: Typical instance.
  • Brief examples: Single illustration.
  • Extended examples: Detailed illustration.
  • Hypothetical example: Believed outcome.

Sharing Stories and Testimonies

  • Story: Chain of events/narrative.
  • Creates emotional connection.
  • Anecdotes: Brief, humorous incidents with moral lessons.
  • Testimony: Firsthand account and opinions.
  • Expert testimony: Information from trained professionals.
  • Lay testimony: Supplied by nonexperts.

Facts and Statistics

  • Facts: Represented, documented occurrences.
  • Statistics: Quantified evidence that summarizes, compares, and predicts.
  • Put statistics into perspective and interpret ethically.
  • Avoid cherry picking statistics.

Finding Credible Sources

  • Assess research needs.
  • Recognize propaganda and misinformation.
  • Information: Data in understandable context.
  • Propaganda: Information provokes desired response.
  • Misinformation: Untrue information.
  • Disinformation: Falsified information.

Primary and Secondary Sources

  • Primary sources: Firsthand accounts or direct evidence.
  • Secondary sources: Analysis/commentary about indirectly observed or created content.
  • Explore primary sources, personal knowledge, government information, digital collections, blogs, conduct interviews, distribute surveys, etc.

Citing Sources

  • Do not credit sources for common knowledge.
  • Oral citation: Credits source.
  • Alert audience: Author, type of source, title, date, etc.
  • Establish source's trustworthiness.
  • Source credibility: Trust in source's credentials/accuracy.

Oral Citation Delivery

  • Avoid mechanical delivery, vary wording/order (natural delivery).
  • Types of sources: Books, reference works, articles, journals, newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, TV/radio, online videos, testimonies, interviews.