4.2 – Demographic Characteristics
The term audience analysis means looking at the audience first by its demographic characteristics and then by their internal psychological traits. Demographic characteristics describe the outward characteristics of the audience. This textbook will discuss 11 of them below, though you might see longer or shorter lists in other settings.
Before we get to the demographic categories, however, be careful about stereotyping, which is generalizing about a group of people and assuming that, because a few people in that group have a characteristic, all of them do.
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At the same time, one should not totalize about a person or group of persons. Totalizing is taking one characteristic of a group or person and making that the “totality” or sum total of what that person or group is. Totalizing often happens to persons with disabilities, for example; the disability is seen as the totality of that person or all that person is about. This can be both harmful to the relationship and ineffective as a means of communicating.
Avoiding stereotyping and totalizing is important because you cannot assume everything about an audience based on just one demographic characteristic. Only two or three might be important, but in other cases, several demographic characteristics matter. The age of a group will be important in how they think about investing their money, but so will the socio-economic level, career or profession, and other factors.
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Second, in terms of thinking about demographic characteristics, not all of them are created equal and not all of them are important in every situation. When parents come to a PTA meeting, they are concerned about their children and playing the important role of “parent,” rather than being concerned about their profession. When senior citizens are thinking about how they will pay for their homes in retirement years, their ethnicity probably has less to do with it as much as their age and socio-economic level.
There is one more point to be made about demographic characteristics before they are listed and explained. In a country of increasing diversity, demographic characteristics are dynamic. People change as the country changes. What was true about demographic characteristics—and even what was considered a demographic characteristic—has changed in the last 50 years.
What follows is a listing of 11 of the more common demographic characteristics that you might use in understanding your audience and shaping your speech to adapt to your audience.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
