Audience Analysis by Direct Observation
Audience Analysis by Direct Observation
Audience analysis by direct observation, or direct experience, is, by far, the most simple of the three paradigms for “getting the feel” of a particular audience. It is a form of qualitative data gathering. We perceive it through one or more of our five natural senses—hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and smelling. Knowledge that we acquire through personal experience has more impact on us than does knowledge that we learn indirectly. Knowledge acquired from personal experience is also more likely to affect our thinking and will be retained for a longer period of time. We are more likely to trust what we hear, see, feel, taste, and smell rather than what we learn from secondary sources of information.
All you really need to do for this method of observation is to examine the broad composition of your audience working in its natural state. If you are lucky enough to be able to do this before speaking to your audience, you will be able to gather some basic reflective data that will help you arrange your thoughts and arguments for your speech.
One excellent way to become informed about your audience is to ask them about themselves. In its most basic form, this is data collection. In the classroom situation, you should have had ample time to get to know your fellow classmates and become familiar with who they are on a personal level. Through class conversations—and your unmonitored small-group conversations before and after class—you will be able to get to know and appreciate each class member as both a human being and an audience member. You will come to understand what interests them, convinces them, or even makes them laugh. Do not discount even a simple form of data collection such as distributing a three- or four-item questionnaire before class. You might arouse interest and curiosity in your topic while you also gain valuable data.
Clearly this cannot be done in every speaking situation, however. Often, we are required to give an unacquainted-audience presentation. Unacquainted-audience presentations are speeches where you are completely unfamiliar with the audience and its demographics. In these cases, it is always best to try and find some time to sit down and talk with someone you trust (or even multiple parties) who might be familiar with the given audience. These confidantes can be very constructive in helping you understand the context in which you will be speaking.
You see, not understanding the basic demographic characteristics of an audience, or further, that audience’s beliefs, values, or attitudes about a given topic, makes your presentation goals haphazard, at best. Look around the room at the people who will be listening to your speech. What types of gender, age, ethnicity, and educational-level characteristics will you be appealing to? What expectations does your audience have for your presentation? These are all important questions you should be asking yourself before you begin doing your research and drafting your outline. Who is it that I am going to be talking to? What, exactly, makes them, as listeners, tick?
