"When audience members come to hear a speech, they bring
prior beliefs, attitudes, values and the life experience with them."
(p.243)
Public speaking is, little to say, a very complicated task.
Nevertheless, the part that I find to be most challenging is the speaker's
needs "to rake into account what audience members may already be
thinking", especially in a diverse society, such as the one we know.
As Milton Rokeach suggests, beliefs, attitude, and values
are the three structures that organize human perception, and they all connect
with each other. Beliefs are the trigger of one's attitude towards a situation.
In her book, Trenholm, like many others, suggests that, "an individual may
have thousands of beliefs and hundreds of attitudes, but only ten or twenty
values". In addition, values are common ideas that are largely shared by individuals
in a society; therefore, a "reference to a cherished value can be a
powerful way to touch an audience.
I think in today's society that it's actually easier than ever for a speaker to account for an audience's attitudes. I'm sure if you think about a speaker that you would like to listen to that you have some positive or negative preconceived notions in regards to that person. Most of us wouldn't go to see a speaker that we don't believe will be speaking to anything that we are either interested in or that we have already thought about agreeing with. Effective speakers will still make sure that they identify with more popular widely held beliefs before moving on to ideas that they are trying to get people to agree with that are less popular.
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