The Importance of Audience Analysis

The Importance of Audience Analysis
The Benefits of Understanding Your Audience
The more you know and understand about the background and needs of your audience,
the better you can prepare your speech.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Explain why it is important to understand your audience prior to delivering a speech
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Key Points
ท Knowing your audience —their general age, gender, education level, religion,
language, culture, and group membership—is the single most important aspect of
developing your speech.
ท Analyzing your audience will help you discover information that you can use to
build common ground between you and the members of your audience.
ท A key characteristic in public speaking situations is the unequal distribution of
speaking time between the speaker and the audience. This means that the
speaker talks more and the audience listens, often without asking questions or
responding with any feedback.
Key Terms
ท audience: One or more people within hearing range of some message; for
example, a group of people listening to a performance or speech; the crowd
attending a stage performance.
ท audience analysis: A study of the pertinent elements defining the makeup and
characteristics of an audience.
ท Audience-centered: Tailored to an audience. When preparing a message, the
speaker analyzes the audience in order to adapt the content and language usage
to the level of the listeners.
Benefits of Understanding Audiences

When you are speaking, you want listeners to understand and respond favorably to
what you are saying. An audience is one or more people who come together to listen to
the speaker. Audience members may be face to face with the speaker or they may be
connected by communication technology such as computers or other media. The
audience may be small and private or it may be large and public. A key characteristic of
public speaking situations is the unequal distribution of speaking time between speaker
and audience. As an example, the speaker usually talks more while the audience
listens, often without asking questions or responding with any feedback. In some
situations, the audience may ask questions or respond overtly by clapping or making
comments.
Understanding the Audience: It’s important to understand the audience and generate a clear message before
giving a speech.
Audience-Centered Approach to Speaking
Since there is usually limited communication between the speaker and the audience,
there is limited opportunity to go back to explain your meaning either during the speech
or afterward. When planning a speech, it is important to know about the audience and to
adapt the message to the audience. You want to prepare an audience-centered speech,
a speech with a focus on the audience.
In public speaking, you are speaking to and for your audience; thus, understanding the
audience is a major part of the speech-making process. In audience-centered speaking,
getting to know your target audience is one of the most important tasks that you face.
You want to learn about the major demographics of the audience, such as general age,
gender, education, religion, and culture, as well as to what groups the audience
members belong. Additionally, learning about the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the
members of your audience will allow you to anticipate and plan your message.
Finding Common Ground by Taking Perspective
You want to analyze your audience prior to your speech so that during the speech you
can create a link between you, the speaker, and the audience. You want to be able to
figuratively step inside the minds of audience members to understand the world from
their perspectives. Through this process, you can find common ground with your
audience, which allows you to align your message with what the audience already
knows or believes.
Gathering and Interpreting Information
Audience analysis involves gathering and interpreting information about the recipients of
oral, written, or visual communication. There are very simple methods for conducting an
audience analysis, such as interviewing a small group about its knowledge or attitudes
or using more involved methods of analyzing demographic studies of relevant segments
of the population. You may also find it useful to look at sociological studies of different
age groups or cultural groups. You might also use a questionnaire or rating scale to
collect data about the basic demographic information and opinions of your target
audience. These examples do not form an all-inclusive list of methods to analyze your
audience, but they can help you obtain a general understanding of how you can learn
about your audience. After considering all the known factors, a profile of the intended
audience can be created, allowing you to speak in a manner that is understood by the
intended audience.
Practical Benefits for the Speaker
Understanding who makes up your target audience will allow you to carefully plan your
message and adapt what you say to the level of understanding and background of the
listeners. Two practical benefits of conducting an audience analysis are (1) to prevent
you from saying the wrong thing, such as telling a joke which offends, and (2) to help
you speak to your audience in a language they understand about things that interest
them. Your speech will be more successful if you can create a message that informs
and engages your audience.
What to Look For

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The Importance of Audience Analysis

The Benefits of Understanding Your Audience

Explain why it is important to understand your audience prior to delivering a speech

Benefits of Understanding Audiences

Audience-Centered Approach to Speaking

Finding Common Ground by Taking Perspective

Gathering and Interpreting Information

Practical Benefits for the Speaker

What to Look For

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