Week 4 Discussion Post #1

Pick one concept from the assigned reading (Chapter 9) that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

One concept I find very interesting is the Audience-Speaker relationship. Not only do audience members have their own life experiences and beliefs when they listen to a speech, but "speakers must take into account what audience members may already be thinking" (Trenholm 257). In the chapter we've already learned that public speakers tend to reach out to larger audiences and their speeches are longer in time. This means that the relationship between the audience member and speaker must be strong from the beginning. Within this concept, I think it would be very difficult to be the speaker, because they have to use various techniques in order to reach and positively affect an audience of various beliefs, attitudes, and values. I know that if a speaker doesn't catch my attention from the start of the speech, I tend to lose interest. As an audience member, I love when speakers are passionate about their cause, instead of feeling like they are trying to "sell me" on something or persuade me. There are so many factors that affect the audience-speaker relationship, and I think having an open mind is key in order to make public communication effective.