5.3: Three Types of Audience Analysis

Whatever method you use, it’s crucial to exercise respect from the outset. For instance, if you are collecting information about sexual activity/ orientation, divorce, political opinions, trauma/abuse, or other sensitive topics, be aware that not everyone will want to answer your questions. You must respect their privacy and not make assumptions about their reluctance to respond.

Here are some demographic categories, examples of how they could be helpful, and stereotypes to avoid.

Age

Age allows a speaker to assess the life stage, shared history, or cultural touchstones the audience might have in common. Are they grandparents who remember The Beatles and Vietnam or Gen Xers who grew up with Star Wars in the 1970s and 80s? Are they in their 20s and 30s and perhaps thinking about careers, homeownership, or starting a family, or are they soon-to-be empty-nesters with too much space? However, not everyone shares the same life trajectory or experiences the same events the same way. Some first-time parents are still teenagers while others are in their 40s.

Gender

Society teaches us how to navigate the world based on our gender identity. Many occupations still tend to be highly gendered with leadership positions still dominated by men (doctor, CEO, pilot, principal) and subordinate positions held by women (nurse, secretary, flight attendant, teacher). As children, boys typically face harsher reprisal for breaking gender norms, such as admitting they enjoy dancing or dolls, which teaches them to keep their thoughts and interests to themselves for fear of being ridiculed. In heterosexual relationships, women often feel more social pressure to be the primary caregiver while stay-at-home dads encounter stigma. Therefore, using gendered language to refer to specific roles, jobs, or hobbies (e.g., saying maternity leave instead of parental leave; she takes ballet and he plays soccer) could perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that our gender does not pre- determine our interests or abilities.

Culture

In past generations, Americans often used the metaphor of a “melting pot” to symbolize assimilation into a unified, harmonious “American people.” Today, we tend to think of America as a “patchwork,” “salad,” or “mosaic.” People do not completely abandon their cultures of origin to conform to a single American identity, and elements of other cultures have become staples of mainstream America.

However, cultural membership is also not visibly obvious, despite stereotypes to the contrary. Physical signifiers such as skin tone, clothing, hairstyle, or even language are superficial, imprecise, and rooted in stereotypes. As a speaker, it is important to trust that people in your audience hail from different cultural backgrounds, but do not assume you know what the background might be. Allow them to share with you (or not) whether they identify as part of a particular ethnic or cultural group. Differences make each group interesting and are important sources of knowledge, perspectives, and creativity.

Religion

There is wide variability in religion as well. Although a majority of Americans still identify with a major religion such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, the number of unaffiliated, atheist, or agnostic people has been growing. Christianity and its various denominations – Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Evangelical, etc. – remains the most common religious affiliation, but the percent of the population who identifies as Christian has been dropping since 2007 (Pew Research Center, 2022).

A great deal of diversity can also be found within each religion. For instance, some people are devout and attend services regularly while others attend occasionally or not at all but still subscribe to major tenets of the faith. Religion can also be tied to cultural identity, with some people observing Easter, Yom Kippur, or Eidal-Fitr out of sense of tradition or nostalgia rather than spirituality. The dimensions of diversity in the religion demographic are almost endless, yet even with these multiple facets, religion is still a meaningful demographic lens. It can be an indicator of probable patterns in family relationships, family size, and moral attitudes.

Group Membership

Fraternities and sororities, sports teams, campus organizations, political parties, volunteerism, and cultural communities all have their own set of values, goals, principles, and codes of ethics, and they provide people with ways of understanding the world as it is and as we think it should be. For instance, Scouting BSA, formerly the Boy Scouts, emphasizes duty ,obedience, strength, and morality, while the Girl Scouts focuses on kindness, fairness, respect, and stewardship. All are admirable and honorable traits, but they are intentionally not identical as each group wants to promote a slightly different set of values to its members.

Because public speaking audiences may attend a speaking event as part of a group affiliation, this demographic category can be a useful and often easy way to analyze an audience.

Education

Higher education provides a “general education” that combines exposure to a broad array of subjects with a narrow focus on a major in preparation for a career in a specific field. Trade and vocational schools typically provide highly technical job training but less general education. And graduate work such as law, medical, or grad school, promote specialized study in a particular field. Many careers also require similar levels and types of education: lawyers are required to go to law school, welder often attend trade schools, and journalists typically have bachelor’s degrees. But as with other categories, making assumptions about a person or group based on whether or not they went to college is no less rooted in stereotypes than assumptions based on race or gender.

Occupation

Occupation can give you a sense of what information your audience might or might not know. Doctors and nurses will understand medical jargon that others might not. Farmers might laugh at a joke about the weather that retail workers don’t get. Trade workers are more likely to belong to a union than investment bankers. But there are also many misconceptions about most occupations. For instance, many people believe that teachers work a six-hour day and have summers off. But the truth is they take work home with them during evenings and weekends, they may teach summer school, or take courses to keep up with new methods and technology. Learning about those occupational realities is important in avoiding wrong assumptions and stereotypes.

Psychographic Analysis

Psychographic analysis involves learning about values, opinions, attitudes, and beliefs, which often cannot be extrapolated from demographic information. Authors Grice and Skinner present a model in which values are the basis for beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Grice&Skinner,2009). They say:

“A value expresses a judgment of what is desirable and undesirable, right and wrong, or good and evil. Values are usually stated in the form o fa word or phrase. For example, most of us probably share the values of equality, freedom, honesty, fairness, justice, good health, and family. These values compose the principles or standards we use to judge and develop our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.”

People often inherit values from their family, cultural influences, and life experiences. The extent to which someone values loyalty, obedience to authority, thrift, humility, and work may be determined by these influences more than by individual choice.

Therefore, psychographic information is very holistic rather than based on a single demographic category. For instance, two people of the same age, religion, and occupation may both love their families, but for one person, that means living nearby and sharing weekly meals, and for the other, it means calling once a week to check in. Some people might define a “modest” vacation as a week at Disney World while others consider that to be lavish and extravagant.

Psychographic analysis can reveal preexisting notions that limit your audience’s frame of reference. By knowing about such notions ahead of time, you can address them in your speech.

Audiences are likely to have two basic kinds of preexisting notions: those about the topic and those about the speaker.

Preexisting Notions about the Topic

Many things are a great deal more complex than we realize, but we have a tendency to oversimplify topics we are unfamiliar with and overcomplicate those we know a lot about. A good audience analysis should help reveal your audience’s level of expertise (or lack thereof) about the topic. For instance, a 21st century teenager might claim that “Hippies were just a bunch of freaks who wore peace signs and did drugs,” which reveals how little they actually know about the diverse hippie cultures and their aspirations in the 1960s. They are probably unaware that some of “the hippies” were the forebearers of such things as organic bakeries, urban gardens, recycling, alternative energy, wellness, and other positive developments. In other words, their lack of knowledge leads to stereotypes and oversimplification of hippie culture.

At the opposite end from oversimplification is the expertise your audience brings to the topic. Suppose you are speaking about trends in civil rights in the United States. An audience of civil rights attorneys will know the specific laws and policies that made the most difference over the years, as well as where the biggest challenges with prejudice, discrimination, and violence persist—knowledge the general public probably doesn’t have to the same degree. As they listen to your speech, they may also instinctively look for grey areas and exceptions as they analyze a topic they are passionate about and enjoy discussing.

So, when you speak to an audience that is knowledgeable and cognitively complex, your strategy must be different from one you would use for an audience that is less familiar with the topic.

When you prepare your audience analysis, include questions that reveal how much your audience already knows about your topic. Try to determine the presence of stereotyped, oversimplified, or prejudiced attitudes about it, as well as highly technical, nuanced knowledge. This could make a difference in your choice of topic or in your approach to the audience and topic.

Preexisting Notions about You

People form opinions readily. For instance, students form impressions of teachers the moment they walk into the classroom on the first day. They get an immediate impression of their teacher’s age, competence, and attitude simply from appearance and nonverbal behavior. In addition, many have heard the opinions of previous students who were in the class.

The same is true when you walk into a speaking environment—but it’s not always easy to get honest feedback about others’ impressions of you, especially if your audience is unfamiliar. You might be aware that your friends think of you as a prankster, or a nature lover, or as someone who is too uptight, and so on. But it’s harder to assess someone’s first impression of you in a formal, short-term setting like a meeting or lecture. Therefore, your concern should be serving your audience’s needs and interests, not debunking their opinions of you or managing your image. In order to help them be receptive, focus on addressing their interests directly, and make sure they get an interesting, ethical speech regardless of what they might (or might know) about you.

Situational Analysis

A good audience analysis can also extend to the environment, or situation. Therefore, a situational audience analysis allows you to examine elements related to the topic, event, occasion, or group of people. The situational audience analysis is divided into two sets of questions:

1. How many people are in the audience, and why are they here? What events, concerns, and needs motivated them to come? What is their interest level, and what else might be competing for their attention?
2. What is the physical environment of the speaking situation? What is the size and layout of the room? Is there a podium, microphone, and digital media for visual aids? Is there room to walk around? Are there any distractions such as traffic noise? Are people seated at round tables or in rows of chairs? Is it stadium seating or flat? How are the acoustics?

Occasion

There are many occasions for speeches. Awards ceremonies, conventions and conferences, holidays, and other celebrations are some examples. However, there are also less joyful reasons for a speech, such as funerals, disasters, and even war. Some of the most successful speeches benefit from situational analysis to identify audience concerns related to the occasion. For example, when the president of the United States gives the annual State of the Union address, the occasion calls for commenting on the condition of the nation and outlining the legislative agenda for the coming year. The speech could be a formality that would only interest lawmakers and political scholars, but with a good situational analysis, it becomes a popular event reinforcing the connection between the president and the American people. In January 2011, President Barack Obama and his staff knew the economy was slowly recovering and that jobless rates were still very high, so they focused his State of the Union on jobs and economic progress. Similarly, in January 2003, President George W. Bush’s speech focused on the “war on terror” and his reasons for the invasion of Iraq. If you look at the history of State of the Union Addresses, you’ll often find that the speeches are tailored to the political, social, and economic situations facing the United States at those times.