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Values and Needs of the Audience




To put yourself in the shoes of the people who will be listening to your presentation, you have four items to consider:

1. Values. What is important to the group? Different organizations have different value systems. Giving a presentation outside your organization is probably very different form presenting internally. Even different departments within an organization can have different values.

2. Needs. It is important to find out in advance of the presentation what the group thinks they need – this may be quite different from what you thought they needed. The speaker then must find a way to resolve the discrepancy.

3. Constraints. These are things that might hold the audience back from doing what you want them to do or from knowing what you want them to know. They include the following areas:

a. Political: Internal politics can be a constraint. If you must get support from competing factions, you must take that into consideration when organizing your presentation. In addition, personality clashes and other forms of conflict may interfere with your success.

b. Financial: Whenever you ask for anything that is going to cost money, you will encounter resistance. You must factor this resistance into your presentation and find ways to overcome it.

c. Knowledge: All of us have our own area of specialization. We must be careful not to use technical language, abbreviations, acronyms, slang words, etc., that people in the audience might not understand. If in doubt, ask the audience if they are familiar with the terminology and define if necessary.

4. Demographic information. Things like the size of the audience, location of the presentation, etc., may also influence the organization.

Also a public speaker needs to keep in mind the goal of persuasion. What is it that you are trying to shape, reinforce, or change in an audience? Usually, what you are trying to influence are the audience’s beliefs, attitudes, values, and behavior.

Beliefs may be taken for granted (an object exists even when we are not looking at it), or based on our senses, or based on authority (the Bible says the poor shall always be with us). We can have many beliefs based on a single attitude, and people with the same attitude might have rather different beliefs.

For example, my attitude that all people are created equal might be based on authority: the legal system says so; on peers: my friends hold the same belief; and on experience: the people I have known seem to have the same basic intelligence and skills. Another person who believes all people are created equal might base that attitude on religious beliefs (authority), parental teaching (authority), and wide reading on the subject (acquired knowledge). Both persons have the same attitude but support it with different beliefs.

Attitudes, according to Martin Fishbein, “are learned predispositions to respond to an object or class of objects in a favorable or unfavorable way”. In other words, we learn attitudes; we are not born with them. And they are our generalized likes or dislikes. They can be called likes or dislikes towards people, ideas, policies, or situations. So, your general dislike of people who smoke, your pro-life stance on abortion, your distaste for certain strata of culture, and your love of parties are all learned attitudes.

Values tend to run deeper than either beliefs or attitudes because they are even more basic. They can be called “a primitive preference for or a positive attitude toward certain end states of existence (like equality, salvation, self-fulfillment, of freedom) or certain broad modes of conduct (like courage, honesty, friendship, or chastity). Your reluctance to report a friend for an illegal act is based on a basic value that friends do not tell on each other; your reporting of a friend might be based on the value that no one is above the law. In either case your behavior is based on a value.

Behavior. Finally, behavior means simply that a persuasive speaker tries to change audience behavior. Sometimes the behavioral change is obvious: vote for a certain candidate, buy a certain product, go to a certain place or try a certain exercise. Sometimes the behavior change is less obvious: read more about modern warfare, listen to more talk about taxation, or tell people about the welfare state.

Types of the Audience

According to the attitude of potential listeners towards the speech, you can choose the strategy which will help you to do your best in reaching the audience

If audience members are then they may… so that you can…
Highly in favor Be ready to act Provide practical suggestion Put emphasis on motivation rather than on information and reasoning
In favor Already share many of your beliefs Crystallize and reinforce existing beliefs and attitudes to lead them to a course of action
Mildly in favor Be inclined to accept your view, but with little commitment Strengthen positive beliefs by emphasizing reasons
Neither in favor nor opposed Be uninformed   Be neutral   Be apathetic Emphasize information relevant to belief or move to action Emphasize reasons relevant to belief or action Concentrate on motivating them to see the importance of the proposition or seriousness of the problem
Mildly opposed Have doubts about the wisdom of your position Give them reasons and evidence that will help them to consider your position
Opposed Have beliefs and attitudes contrary to yours Emphasize sound arguments Concentrate on shifting beliefs rather than on moving to action Be objective to avoid arousing hostility
Hostile Be totally unreceptive to your position Plant the “seed of persuasion” Try to get them to understand your position




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