Recognize the Value of Audience Diversity

In interpersonal communication, you adapt your message to one other person. Your task as a public speaker is more challenging, however, for each added person increases the diversity of any audience. Each audience member is unique.

Today's college classroom, like most segments of American life, is increasingly diverse. Your classmates may differ from one another in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, educational background, beliefs, values, attitudes, and numerous other characteristics. Talking about those differences can reveal what you have in common and build your sense of community. Your challenge is to recognize how your listeners differ from one another and to understand, respect, and adapt to this diversity as you develop and deliver your speeches. Evidence shows that it's a challenge worth taking.

Based on his research and his review of other scholars' studies, education professor Jeffrey Milem concludes that students benefit when they interact with peers of different backgrounds. Specifically, these students

• become more engaged in their own learning,

• improve their critical thinking skills,

• enhance their interpersonal and social competence,

• are more satisfied with their college experience,

• are more likely to engage in community service, and

• demonstrate greater acceptance of people from other cultures.

Milem argues that diverse environments provide students “opportunities to develop the skills and competencies they will need to function effectively as citizens of an increasingly diverse democracy.”5

If you value your listeners and want to communicate successfully, then you must consider their diversity and view public speaking as an audience-centered activity. You can accomplish this in three ways:

To discover who your audience members are and what motivates them, you will exercise at least five critical thinking skills. You will engage in information gathering as you collect data to develop an increasingly clearer picture of who your listeners are. As you exercise the skill of remembering, you'll tap your memories of what your listeners have said and done. You will focus on elements of the picture that seem most relevant to topic areas you are considering for your speeches. As you combine, summarize, and restructure pieces of information about your listeners, you will exercise the critical thinking skill of integrating. Finally, you will analyze the information you have collected by examining individual characteristics of your listeners and the relationships among those characteristics.

Audience analysis is a process that shapes and molds the preparation, delivery, and evaluation of any well-planned public speech. In other words, audience analysis occurs before, during, and after the act of speaking. Let's consider more closely how this process works.