Page 167 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

134 Part 2 Between Audience and Speaker

is not a virus that only attacks gays, intravenous drug users, or the sexually pro-
miscuous. She was a married professional, faithful to her spouse, and she con-
tracted the virus from her husband. If audience members recognized that AIDS
could infect anyone, not just a few groups, then she would fulfi ll her short-term
goal. In the long term, of course, she desired more—an end to the epidemic and
the stigma associated with AIDS. But she fi rst had to choose an attainable goal.
Although we should never lose sight of the “big picture,” we should also rec-
ognize that the realization of short-term goals makes the realization of long-term
goals more probable. Giving up a bad habit for a day, for example, makes giving
up the habit for a week or longer much easier for people. It’s in the speaker’s best
interest, then, to focus on what an audience would fi nd palatable in the short run
before tackling tougher long-term goals.
Your specifi c purpose, as discussed in Chapter 2, is the objective you hope to
achieve in speaking to a particular audience on a particular occasion. Although
your instructor will probably assign you a general purpose for each speech, such
as to persuade, to inform, or to entertain, the specifi c purpose is up to you. The
specifi c purpose should be chosen to fulfi ll a specifi c goal.

The Audience

Given the specifi c purpose and goals you have tentatively established for your
speech, you now want to be able to predict whether they make sense in light of
your audience. Analyzing your audience is an extension of the process we all go
through when meeting and getting to know new people. It begins on a general
level and then becomes increasingly specifi c. When we meet new people, we try
to gauge the degree to which they are similar to us; for example, do they share
our language and dialect? We then use this information as a basis for predictions
about how to introduce ourselves and what topics of conversation and questions
would be appropriate. As we get to know people better, we learn more about
what makes them unique. We then use this new, more sophisticated knowledge
to guide us in broaching more sensitive topics with them.
You do much the same thing with an audience. Instead of focusing on a single
person, however, you have the more diffi cult task of focusing on many. What
you discover about them helps you decide what to say and how to say it. You
can never know all there is to know about even a small audience. Still, if you are
systematic in your analysis, you can learn a tremendous amount about the in-

creasingly diverse people you encounter. You can profitably use what you learn
about such people to adapt your purpose, goal, and eventual message so that
they welcome rather than reject your speech.
Any hope you have of achieving your speaking goals, however, depends on
whether there is an audience “capable of being infl uenced by discourse and of
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being mediators of change.” Audience analysis begins by knowing who your
audience is.

Audience Choice

In looking at your audience, ask yourself two basic questions:
• Do I get to choose my audience?
• Does my audience get to choose whether to listen to me?