Adapting Ideas to People and People to Ideas

Author: Alusine Melvin Moseray Kanu DA

When an audience is recognized, we can see notions of communication, culture and identity with individuals and society as a system. Becoming multicultural is moving to adapt to cultural audiences and to come up with different approaches and perspectives in relating to similar and different audiences. Beebe and Beebe (2009) propose analysis of audience being receptive, neutral, or unreceptive to persuasive messages: To adapt messages to audiences, it is recommended that if the audience is receptive, questions to consider are;

• How will I identify with them?

• How will I clearly state my objective?

• How will I phrase my request for an immediate show of support?

• What emotional appeals will be ethical and appropriate?

• How will I make it easy for my listeners to respond?

If my audience is neutral:

• How will I capture and maintain my listeners' attention?

• What common beliefs of my audience should I refer to?

• How will I relate my topic and the issues to audience members' friends, family, and loved ones?

• What can I realistically expect to accomplish in one speech?

If my audience is unreceptive:

• How will I ensure that I refrain from telling them I plan to change their minds?

• What areas of agreement with my audience will I stress?

• How can I acknowledge opposing points of view my audience holds?

• How will I establish my credibility?

• How will I try to help my audience better understand my ideas and change any misconceptions they might hold?

• What can I realistically expect to accomplish in one speech?

The demographic factors of an audience include age, gender, religion, ethnic background, class, sexual orientation, occupation, education, group membership, and countless other categories. Since these categories often organize individual's identities and experiences, a wise speaker attends to them. Communicators must be careful about stereotyping an audience based on demographic information – individuals are always more complicated than a simplistic identity category. Also, be careful not to pander exclusively to interests based on demographics. In its application, cultural adaptation to audience analysis includes moving from one culture to another usually learning the rules, norms, customs and language of the new culture. Adjusting and adapting to a new culture includes learning new repertoire or set of thoughts, feelings through "transformation"

When people become audience members in a speech situation, they bring with them expectations about the occasion, topic, and speaker. Violating audience expectations can have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the speech. Presenters that make discursive statements do so precisely because the goal is to have message congruity with the occasion to increase the impact of the proclamation. Audience knowledge of a topic can vary widely on any given occasion; therefore, communicators should find out what their audiences already know about the topic. Never overestimate the audience's knowledge of a topic. Knowing audience members' attitudes about a topic will help a speaker determine the best way to reach their goals of adapting ideas to people and people to ideas.

Source: Beebe, S.A. and Beebe, S.J. (2009). Public Speaking: An Audience-Centered Approach with Public Speaking Student Handbook by Brigit Talkington and Don Boileau. New York: Custom Publishing.

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