Strategically Considering Your Target Populace
The ACA Open Knowledge Online Guide
Tyrone L. Adams, Ph.D. [tyadams@louisiana.edu] D’Aquin Professor of Journalism and Communication Department of Communication University of Louisiana, Lafayette and Peter A. DeCaro, Ph.D. [pdecaro@csustan.edu] Department Chair and Associate Professor of Communication Department of Communication California State University Stanislaus
The Significance of Audience Analysis: Strategically Considering Your Target Populace
It cannot be said often enough: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE! Knowing your audience—their beliefs, attitudes, age, education level, job functions, language and culture—is the single most important aspect of developing your speech. Your audience isn’t just a passive group of people who come together …show more content…
It is a form of critical thinking known as inductive reasoning, and another form of qualitative data gathering. An inference is when you make a reasoned tentative conclusion or logical judgment on the basis of available evidence. It is best used when you can identify patterns in your evidence that indicate something is expected to happen again or should hold true based upon previous experiences. Do you need to learn how to interpret information and draw conclusions? Absolutely! We make inferences—or reasonable assumptions—all the time. For example, when we hear someone speaking Arabic, we infer that they are from the Middle East. When we see this person carrying a copy of The Koran, we infer that they are also a follower of the Muslim faith. These are reasoned tentative conclusions that we make based upon the evidence available to us and our general knowledge about people and their traits. When we reason, we make connections, distinctions, and predictions; we use what is known or familiar to us to reach a conclusion about something that is unknown or unfamiliar for it to make sense. Granted, of course, inferences are sometimes wrong. Here’s a familiar example: Some of your classmates recommend a particular course to you, telling you that it is relatively simple. You’ve heard similar things from other students, so you take the course and discover that they were, indeed, right. These same classmates recommend another course allegedly just as trouble-free as the last one. Only this time, you discover the opposite to be true. The course was insanely difficult. You inferred, or made a reasonable assumption based on information from your fellow classmates, that the course they recommended would be easy. Hey! You aren’t alone in this regard. Everybody makes these types of mistakes. It’s a normal part of processing information. Audience Analysis by Data Sampling Unlike audience analysis by direct observation and analysis by inference, audience analysis by
Tyrone L. Adams, Ph.D. [tyadams@louisiana.edu] D’Aquin Professor of Journalism and Communication Department of Communication University of Louisiana, Lafayette and Peter A. DeCaro, Ph.D. [pdecaro@csustan.edu] Department Chair and Associate Professor of Communication Department of Communication California State University Stanislaus
The Significance of Audience Analysis: Strategically Considering Your Target Populace
It cannot be said often enough: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE! Knowing your audience—their beliefs, attitudes, age, education level, job functions, language and culture—is the single most important aspect of developing your speech. Your audience isn’t just a passive group of people who come together …show more content…
It is a form of critical thinking known as inductive reasoning, and another form of qualitative data gathering. An inference is when you make a reasoned tentative conclusion or logical judgment on the basis of available evidence. It is best used when you can identify patterns in your evidence that indicate something is expected to happen again or should hold true based upon previous experiences. Do you need to learn how to interpret information and draw conclusions? Absolutely! We make inferences—or reasonable assumptions—all the time. For example, when we hear someone speaking Arabic, we infer that they are from the Middle East. When we see this person carrying a copy of The Koran, we infer that they are also a follower of the Muslim faith. These are reasoned tentative conclusions that we make based upon the evidence available to us and our general knowledge about people and their traits. When we reason, we make connections, distinctions, and predictions; we use what is known or familiar to us to reach a conclusion about something that is unknown or unfamiliar for it to make sense. Granted, of course, inferences are sometimes wrong. Here’s a familiar example: Some of your classmates recommend a particular course to you, telling you that it is relatively simple. You’ve heard similar things from other students, so you take the course and discover that they were, indeed, right. These same classmates recommend another course allegedly just as trouble-free as the last one. Only this time, you discover the opposite to be true. The course was insanely difficult. You inferred, or made a reasonable assumption based on information from your fellow classmates, that the course they recommended would be easy. Hey! You aren’t alone in this regard. Everybody makes these types of mistakes. It’s a normal part of processing information. Audience Analysis by Data Sampling Unlike audience analysis by direct observation and analysis by inference, audience analysis by