The reading of audience analysis had some very interesting points. The part of the reading titled "The Audience-Speaker Connection" sounded bland and boring, but, when I read it, it made so much sense to me. It reminded me of other readings we had in a previous chapter about "noise". If you'll recall noise is the internal and external distractions to a listener that blocks the message. To me, getting that connection to the audience would automatically remove the threat of the internal noise. You know, the "I'm thinking of something else while I should be listening to you talk and now I have no idea what you are talking about" noise in your head? Well, if you can make that connection the book talks about on page 78, then I think my speech will be so much better received.
Why are you making a speech to begin with? You're there to deliver a message. If they can't relate to what your saying then they won't pay attention and your message will be lost. So, when I prepare my next speech (demonstration speech) I have a whole new way to deliver it. I have a couple ideas about how I can use some of the information I gained about some of the students through their culture speeches and connect that with my upcoming speech. This whole idea of audience-centered approach is very helpful. I thought my culture speech was just OK. But now, coming from this angle and knowing my audience better, I can draw them into understanding why it's important to listen to what I have to say. My speech will now stand a chance of being a little more successsful because it will be about them, my audience. Besides, aren't we all a little bit narcissistic?
You brought up a good point. The culture speeches will be a useful tool in analyzing our audience and creating an entertaining and interesting speech. This may very well have been the underlying purpose of the cultural speech. It was a perfect way for us to get to know our audience on different levels, while gaining valuable experience. Now the only question is, how well did everyone actually pay attention?? Like you said, people have a tendency to be a bit narcissistic so hopefully everyone really listened to the culture speeches so that they can take advantage of the valuable information that was revealed about each of our peers.
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