At every stage of the process of preparing and delivering a speech, one factor should receive careful consideration - the audience.  If you think back to the communication model, the reason becomes clear.  Unless you are simply expressing your feelings to release them or just "talking to yourself" (as in thinking out loud), you are speaking to communicate a message to someone else.  So naturally, you want to find the best way to make that message be clear and interesting to the other person -- or in the case of public speaking, to the audience.

Learning about the Audience

As stated in the section about selecting a topic, a public speaker faces a bit of a dilemma in adapting his/her message.  An "audience" is a composite of individuals, meaning that what might make a message perfect for one individual may not work for others.  What a speaker must do is try to find the "common ground" among audience members that will make the message effective with the greatest number of audience members possible.  There are two basic ways to find this "common ground":  research about the audience, and the use of "educated stereotypes."

Researching an Audience

In some situations, the speaker may be able to answer his/her questions about an audience through direct means.  For example, if you are speaking to an organized group (such as the Lions Club), you would probably want to talk to the leadership of the organization or to a member about the interests and expectations of the members.  Sometimes you may be able to talk to someone who has faced the same audience before, giving you important insights into the way the audience responds.  Sometimes, you may want to survey the members of an audience to find out their attitudes or knowledge on a subject before your speech.  In each of these situations, however, it is assumed that your audience is fixed; in other words, you can be fairly sure that the membership of the audience won't change dramatically from one speaking situation to another.  In much of public speaking, however, that is not the case; audiences are drawn together for a variety of reasons other than organizational affiliation.  In that case, you may want to use "educated stereotypes" to help you adapt your message.

"Educated" Stereotypes

In general, we think of "stereotypes" in a negative sense.  People who stereotype others group all members of a class together without taking into account individual differences.  However, stereotypes, whether good or bad, serve a useful purpose; they allow us to make assumptions that tell us how to act in the presence of others.   The danger of stereotypes is when the assumptions are based on faulty information and when people forget that individuals may be different from the whole group.  In public speaking, we want to take advantage of the useful aspect of stereotypes without falling victim to the dangers.  That is why we speak of "educated" stereotypes. 

So, how does one create an "educated" stereotype about an audience?  One way is by using demographic information to help provide a composite picture of the audience.  Once you have an idea of who is in your audience, you can consider the following factors in terms of that picture:

• Interest - What will probably be the level of interest this group of people will have in my topic?  Is there a way to adapt the topic to appeal to the particular interests of this group?
• Knowledge - How much is my audience likely to know about this subject?  Will I need to spend time introducing concepts, or will I be able to talk about more advanced concepts?  How much specialized terminology or jargon should I use?
• Attitude - What attitude is likely to be prevalent in this audience?  Will they agree with me on the subject?  Disagree?  How strongly will they feel about the subject?
• Motivation - Why is this audience here to listen to the speech?  Are they motivated by extrinsic factors (such as being required to come, getting convocation credit, being paid to come)? Are they motivated by intrinsic factors (such as truly wanting to learn about the subject, interest in seeing you succeed)?  Is there anything I can do to increase intrinsic motivation?

Once you have considered these factors, in conjunction with your own interests and knowledge on the subject, you may begin to see a certain path you should take to deliver an effective speech.  Remember that this is only the first stage in which thinking about your audience will help you make decisions about the speech; consideration of the audience should be a part of every stage of the speech-making process.

For a form that can help you in your consideration of the audience, click here.