Audience Analysis

Examples of Audience Analysis in the following topics:

• The Benefits of Understanding Your Audience

  • The audience may be small or it may be a large public audience.
  • In order to prepare, it is important to know about the audience and adapt the message to the audience.
  • Audience analysis involves gathering and interpreting information about the recipients of oral, written or visual communication.
  • There are very simple methods for conducting an audience analysis such as interviewing a small group about its knowledge or attitudes, or using more involved methods of analyzing demographic studies of relevant segments of the population.
  • Two practical benefits of conducting an audience analysis are (1) to prevent you from saying the wrong thing such as telling a joke which offends, and (2) to help you speak to your audience in a language they understand about things of interest to them.

• What to Look For

  • By looking at the audience, the speaker understands their reality.
  • The speaker should attempt to reach the most accurate and effective analysis of her audience within a reasonable amount of time.
  • For example, speakers can assess the demographics of her audience.
  • For an analysis of audience demographics for a speech, focus on the same characteristics studied in sociology.
  • The depth of the audience analysis depends of the size of the intended audience and method of delivery.

• The Nature of Persuasive Communications

  • Sometimes a message is meant to convince an audience of the rightness of a certain choice or course of action.
  • Persuasive communicators also work to increase audience awareness and willingness to consider their position.
  • The final key to creating a persuasive argument is helping the audience develop a tolerance for alternative perspectives.
  • Perhaps the audience is interested in purchasing a certain type of car; as the lead salesperson on that model, the speaker has to listen and perform informal audience analysis to learn that horsepower and speed are important values to this customer.
  • A call to action offers its audience a clear choice for their response.

• What to Do with Your Knowledge

  • When the speaker takes an audience-centered approach to speech preparation, she focuses on the audience and how it will respond to what is being said.
  • In essence, the speaker wants to mentally adopt the perspective of members of the audience in order to see the world as the audience members see it.
  • What do you and your audience have in common?
  • You can use your analysis to create what is called a "theoretical, universal audience. " The universal audience is an imagined audience that serves as a test for the speaker.
  • Imagine in your mind a composite audience that contains individuals from the diverse backgrounds you have discovered in your audience analysis.

• Culture, Ethnicity, and Race

  • As society becomes more diverse, the speaker will find it useful to learn more about the cultures, races and ethnic groups in each audience.
  • In addition to considering the attitudes of the audience toward different cultures, races or ethnic groups, it is also important to consider how a diverse group will respond to certain parts of your message .
  • Before considering the role of culture, race and ethnicity in audience analysis it is useful to distinguish among the terms.
  • In order to adapt the message to the audience it is important to become aware of your own ethnocentrism and to avoid prejudice and racism.
  • When you judge another culture solely by the values and standards of your own culture you miss significant aspects of the other culture of the members of your audience.

• Defining a Persuasive Speech

  • Persuasive speeches aim to convince the audience to believe a certain view.
  • The speech is arranged in such a way as to hopefully cause the audience to accept all or part of the expressed view.
  • Though the overarching goal of a persuasive speech is to convince the audience to accept a perspective, not all audiences can be convinced by a single speech and not all perspectives can persuade the audience.
  • During a sales pitch, the speaker is trying to convince the audience to buy his or her product or service.
  • Audience analysis is an important factor when giving a persuasive speech.

• Limitations of Financial Statement Analysis

  • Ratio analysis using financial statements includes accounting, stock market, and management related limitations.
  • First of all, ratio analysis is hampered by potential limitations with accounting and the data in the financial statements themselves.
  • Ratio analysis using financial statements as a tool for performing stock valuation can be limited as well.
  • While the weak form of this hypothesis argues that there can be a long run benefit to information derived from fundamental analysis, stronger forms argue that fundamental analysis like ratio analysis will not allow for greater financial returns.
  • These audiences also see limits to ratio analysis as a predictor of stock market returns.

• Classification

  • Ratio analysis is one of three methods an investor can use to gain that understanding.
  • Financial statement analysis is the process of understanding the risk and profitability of a firm through analysis of reported financial information.
  • There are various types of financial ratios, grouped by their relevance to different aspects of a company's business as well as to their interest to different audiences.
  • Market ratios are concerned with shareholder audiences.
  • Financial ratio analysis allows an observer to put the data provided by a company in context.

• Preface

  • This book began as a set of reading notes as Hanneman sought to teach himself the basics of social network analysis.
  • It then became a set of lecture notes for students in his undergraduate course in social network analysis.
  • The book is distributed free on the Internet in the hope that it may reach a diverse audience, and that the core ideas and methods of this field may be of interest.
  • The book may also be suitable as course-support for undergraduate or introductory graduate training in social network analysis.
  • The concepts and techniques of social network analysis are informed by, and inform the evolution of these broader fields.

• Communicating Statistics

  • Statistics is the study of the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data.
  • Your audience is much more likely to believe you if you incorporate statistics.
  • As a result, consider using visual tools such as tables, graphs, and maps to make statistics more understandable for your audience.
  • Visual representations of quantitative information such as this map, which illustrates the prevalence of self-reported obesity among U.S. adults by state and territory, can make data more understandable for your audience.