Courses: This class activity is suited for the basic course on public speaking (to discuss issues related to identity, privilege, and audience analysis), interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and communication pedagogy. Objectives: By completing this 30- to 45-minute activity, students should be able to: (1) define privilege;…

Courses: Persuasion, Marketing, Advanced Public Speaking, Argumentation. Objectives: The aims of this assignment are to introduce students to the concept of data mining as a tool for audience analysis and to improve students' ability to adapt a message to a specific audience.

Courses: Public Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, Persuasion, Political Communication, and Media Communication. Objectives: By the end of this activity, students should be able to: explain the key components of Lloyd Bitzer's rhetorical situation; assess and navigate various conditions affecting various speaking situations; conduct audience analysis…

Courses: This activity is designed specifically for public-speaking courses, but it could be used in the general introductory communication course. It also holds potential for use in persuasion, argumentation, or strategic communication courses. Objectives: This activity helps students understand audience as a more complicated concept--one that…

Courses: Science communication courses across course levels. Objective: This activity aims to introduce students to critical thinking concepts and strategies that have applicability and transferability throughout students' academic and professional careers while deepening their understanding of identifying, discussing, and analyzing scientific…

Courses: Introduction to Communication, Public Speaking, Persuasion, Business Communication. Objective: This activity increases students' understanding of audience adaptation and improves their ability to adapt presentations to specific audiences.

Courses: Public Speaking, Business and Professional Communication, Persuasion, or any other skill-based oral communication course. Objectives: Students will practice the development and demonstration of persuasive arguments in this single-class social judgment theory activity to improve their ability to change resistant audience attitudes.

A fundamental challenge that all public speakers face is getting and keeping the attention of audiences. Because audiences absorb large amounts of talk with little chance of taking the floor, the potential for inattentiveness and boredom is significant. In conversational interchanges, the brief duration of speaking turns and regular transfers of…

Using Critical Communication Pedagogy, this semester-long service-learning approach to public speaking requires students to apply public speaking concepts to a speech they develop and deliver to a specific community audience, to examine their own biases, and to explore and evaluate various strategies for adapting to their audience.

Teaching students to understand the importance of audience analysis can be challenging. In fact, many public-speaking texts suggest methods for engaging audience analysis that is not always practical or possible (e.g., polling audiences before you speak to them). One practical way of understanding audience analysis is to see it at work in the text…

Language choice--specifically word choice--is an important topic on a basic communication or public speaking course. One sub-topic under "Language" involves understanding the difference between denotation and connotation. Denotation refers to a word's definition, while connotation refers to the emotions associated with the word. Speakers need to…

From the earliest roots of rhetoric, practitioners emphasized the need for analyzing one's audience before developing a speech. Textbooks for most basic public speaking courses spend at least one chapter discussing audience analysis. Authors discuss adapting messages to various demographic, cultural, and individual differences. As a result,…

Corporate influence is a defining characteristic of mass media in the U.S. A typical introductory textbook devotes a number of chapters to the economic structure of the mass media including advertising, public relations, and corporate ownership, then also includes chapter sections on the economics of the various media (television, radio,…

When working with students to prepare oral presentations, the question--"What makes an effective visual aid?"--often arises. Most teachers realize the value of visual aids, but what makes them effective is sometimes unclear. There seems to be a disconnect between what the teacher, the textbook, and the student actually perceive to be a "good"…

Strategic planning for public speaking by emphasizing the process is a primary pedagogical lesson instructors attempt to teach in a public speaking course. One indispensable part of the strategic planning process is audience analysis. Surveying the audience about their attitudes, knowledge, and/or interests in regard to the speech topic entails…