Be sensitive to your audience and speech situation.
Every audience is different; therefore, it's impossible
to say what general strategies will work for a particular situation.
The means of persuasion arise from a given situation.
Aristotle defined rhetoric as "the ability to
discover all the available means of persuasion in any given situation" (Rhetoric,
1355b, 25)
The speaker must look for the means of persuasion
that he or she finds in a particular situation--the means of persuasion
will change from occasion to occasion.
Look for the specific points of disagreement and
agreement.
Ask where this audience disagrees with you, as well
as where they agree.
The Greeks and Romans called a point of disagreement
stasis for where the argument stands or stops. We would call
them issues. An issue is a point of contention or, at least, a question
the audience may have about a topic.
Once you identify the points of disagreement, you can:
focus your arguments on these points
or shift the focus to some other aspect of the speech in order to bring
the audience together.
The important issues about any given topic can change from one rhetorical
situation to another. For example, one audience may be concerned about
how much a product costs, while another more affluent audience may be more
concerned with the prestige factor of the product.
Audiences vary in the degree of salience of the issues.
The salience of an issue is the degree to which the issue is conspicuous
or prominent for the audience (Something that is salient projects or jutts
beyond a line or surface; protruds).
A speaker can bring certain issues to the rhetorical situation, but
he must be most concerned with the issues that are salient for the audience.
Strategies
When topics are highly salient, listeners are more likely to be familiar
with the central issues.
When topics are highly salient, listeners will be more resistant to
change
When topics are highly salient, increasing numbers of cogent or strong
arguments you offer on behalf of your ideas has a positive influence on
listeners; when saliency is low, increasing numbers of both strong and
weak arguments enhances the persuasive effect.
An audience will be more highly critical if your position challenges
their central values.
Quote salient authorities in your persuasive and actuative speeches.
Do not approach your message only in terms that are important or salient
to you. Be sure to begin your planning with issues that are salient to
you audience.
There are certain stock issues
In a debate
Is there a compelling need for a change?
Is that need inherent in the very structure of the present situation?
Will the proposed solution meet the need presented?
Is the solution workable and practical?
Do the advantages of the proposed solution outweigh the disadvantages?
Problem solving
Is there a problem?
What are the symptoms?
How serious is it?
What caused the problem?
What are the appropriate criteria by which to evaluate a solution?
What are all the possible solutions to the problem?
Which of these solutions best fits the criteria established?
How can the solution be put into effect?
Strategies:You can use points of agreement:
to emphasize what the speaker and the audience have in common.
as a premise or starting point on which to build an argument about
some point of disagreement.
Ask why this audience disagrees with you.
Ask yourself:
Do they disagree for well-thought-out reasons?
Do they disagree for emotional reasons?
Do they disagree because of certain values that they hold?
Do they disagree for reasons that have nothing to do with the substance
of my message--such as, the sound of my name?
Do they disagree because this issues affects a whole network of interconnected
values?
Strategies: Depending
on why they disagree, you can plan your response.
You could address the specific rational reason for disagreement and
give counter-arguments.
Do so if:
you have an initially hostile audience
There is a high probability that your audience will be exposed to counter-arguments
The audience is well educated
You could address the arguments directly or indirectly, depending on
the audience and topic.
if they are willing to accept it, you may show them how an emotional
objection does not apply.
You could show how your message is really consistent with the values
that they hold.
either a higher values than the one that creates the objection.
or the very same value that causes them to object.
You could ignore irrelevant objections, or you could show how they
are actually advantages.
You may try to deal with the whole network of values if possible, or
you could try to isolate the particular issues that you are addressing.
Consider what they know and how they feel about the
speaker, topic, occasion and themselves.
What the audience know and feels can form premises
for your arguments. The audience helps persuade itself.
You can map out the audience on scales of opinion
and knowledge.
(These scales refer to what they audience knows and
feels about the topic, but this can involve the other issues as well.)
From these scales, we can create several different
audience profiles:
informed favorable
informed neutral
informed hostile
uninformed favorable
uninformed neutral
uninformed hostile
This allows us to distinguish between degrees of
agreement-disagreement, as well as between informed and uninformed objection.
A speaker should use different approaches for each
of these profiles, as we shall see.
Strategies
In general:
If the audience is informed and hostile, you should use a more rational
appeal.
If an audience is uninformed and hostile, you should use a combination
of emotional and rational appeals.
Specifically:
Favorable
Make use of emotional appeals to intensify your listener's support.
Get your audience to make a public commitment.
Provide specific alternatives for action.
Prepare your audience to carry your message to others.
Neutral
Stress attention factors with an uninterested neutral audience.
With an uninformed neutral audience, emphasize material that clarifies
and illuminates your position.
For an undecided neutral audience, establish your credibility by presenting
new arguments that blend logical and emotional appeals.
Hostile
Set realistic goals.
Stress common ground.
Base you speech on sound logic and extensive evidence.
Pay particular attention to establishing a credible image.
Try a two-sided approach.
Avoid obvious euphemisms.
Another way to describe what the audience knows
and how they feel about a topic is to say that audiences vary in their
degree of cognitive complexity.
Cognitive complexity is a combination of maturity,
intelligence, and experience that affects how an audience will approach
a topic.
More than just knowledge, cognitive complexity also takes into account
an audience's experience, in other words, the depth or nature of their
knowledge.
For example, a group of high school honor students in physics may know
a great deal about the superconductivity. However, a veteran physicist
will not only have more knowledge, but will also have a greater maturity
and experience with the topic.
Strategies
Cognitively complex audiences demand and can follow relatively sophisticated
arguments.
They respond better to two-sided than to one-sided messages.
They require a large amount of evidence before they will change beliefs
or attitudes.
Cognitively complex speakers generate more strategically sound tactics
and are therefore perceived as more competent speakers.
There are some other factors that relate to an audience's
knowledge and opinion of which a careful communicator should be aware.
The audience's latitude of change will affect how
much change they will accept.
Latitude of change simply means the extent or amount of change that
an audience is willing to consider.
Audiences with narrow latitude of change will not change their position
very much; audiences with a wider latitude of change will be more likely
to accept more sweeping changes.
Strategies
Conservative audiences may have a narrow latitude of acceptance and
may not be willing to accept much change.
Be realistic about the degree of change you can expect.
Try for smaller incremental changes.
Audiences that need to think about your message
will tend to scrutinize the message more.
Audiences with low motivation to think about the
issues, are more likely to base decisions on peripheral concerns.
attractiveness of speaker
deference to authority
Persuade by your own credibility or ethos.
In general, your credibility will be higher with
audiences who are unmotivated or are uninformed.
You should enhance your image of competency.
Depending on the audience, carefully set forth all
the competing positions before you offer your own judgment.
Set up standards of judgment and show how your position
meets generally accepted criteria.
Show how your recommendations actually solve the
problems you have discussed.
You should enhance your image of sincerity.
Be open to correction and criticism--be calm with
hecklers.
Be warm as you relate to the audience.
Look at them.
Recognize those who have helped you work on the
problem.
You should enhance your image of expertise.
Document sources.
use a variety of sources.
Be organized.
Use clear, simple visual aids when necessary.
Provide adequate background information on controversial
issues.
Separate causes from effect. short-term from long-term
effects, hard facts from wishes or dreams, and each proposal from another.
Be calm and forthright.
Be friendly.
Respect the opposition.
Talk in terms of real-world problems rather than
personalities or ideologies.
Be dynamic.
Speak vividly.
clear images
fresh metaphors
active verbs
short sentences
Speak conversationally.
Be animated.
All of these things should help you frame a purpose
for your message that is realistic for the given audience.
Don't try for too much change.
Find a purpose that you can accomplish even if the
audience is mixed.
You must put all these things together to create
an effective message.
it's more like an art than a science--that's why
Aristotle called all these things "artistic proofs."
