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Public Communication

OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter you should be able to:

1. Define three dimensions of source credibility.

2. Describe four modes of delivery.

3. Outline five popular patterns of message organization.

4. Describe the use of at least two types of supporting materials and state the research findings regarding the effects of using evidence in persuasive communication.

5. Distinguish between the assimilation effect and the contrast effect and describe relevance of each to the problem of how much change a speaker should advc

6. Specify under what conditions one-sided and two-sided messages are most suitable.

7. State the conditions under which climax- and anticlimax-order messages are effective.

8. State the general research findings regarding the relative effectiveness of each containing stated versus implied conclusions.

On January 20, 1989, President George Bush said in his inaugural speech:

 

I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time but we can make it better. For a new breeze is blowing and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blow away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

For centuries, public communication has been one of the cornerstones upon which civilizations have been built. Communication as a discipline has grown out of the traditions of the great ancient rhetoricians from Aristotle and Cicero to the modern orators. Throughout the ages public communication has served to unite as well as inspire people to action.

In various communication contexts the interaction of communicators is different. Two-person interaction comes closest to an equal exchange between communicators. Theoretically each person is responsible for half of all the verbal and nonverbal messages transmitted; each is both speaker and listener. When we become members of problem-solving or therapeutic groups, the balance shifts and the communication process changes. We speak for shorter periods of time; we listen longer. Yet we still think of ourselves as speakers and listeners, senders and receivers of messages.

In public communication one person is designated the speaker, and the rest are cast in the complementary role of listeners, or audience members. Participants are still face to face and are still sending and receiving communicative stimuli. Anyone who has tried to speak before an audience whose members are reading the paper, sleeping, or doing other things that denote lack of attention knows all too well that audiences do send messages as well as receive them. But the balance of message sending is quite uneven—-the speaker initiates most of the verbal messages, and, though audience members often send nonverbal messages (applause, laughter, catcalls, and so on), audiences in general are not usually expected to contribute verbal messages except in a question-and-answer period following the speech. Despite this imbalance, public communication is still face-to-face communication, and we frequently find ourselves participating in it as either speakers or listeners.



(Hart et al. [1975, pp. 23-24) outlined three distinctive aspects of the public communication:

1. First, it tends to occur in what are usually considered public rather than private places—auditoriums, classrooms, and the like rather than homes, offices, and other private gathering places.

2. Second, public speaking is a "pronounced social occasion" rather than a more informal and unstructured one. It is usually planned in advance. There may be an agenda, and other events may precede and follow the speaker's presentation.

3. And third, public communication involves behavioral norms that are relatively clear-cut.

For all these reasons public communication often demands that the speaker be much more deliberate and organized. In private conversation we tend to value spontaneity and informality, but the same spontaneous, unplanned approach is usually inappropriate to the public speaking situation. The list that follows sum­marizes ten unique demands of public communication (Hart et al., 1975):

1. The message must be relevant to the group as a whole—not merely to one or a few individuals in that group. In public communication, the "common denominator" must be constantly searched for by the speaker.

2. "Public" language is more restricted, that is, it is less flexible, uses a more familiar code, is less personal in phrasing, and is filled with fewer connotations than is "private" talk.

3. Feedback is more restricted, since it is limited to subtle nonverbal re­sponses in many instances.

4. There is greater audience diversity to deal with. In public communication we face the difficulty of entering many "perceptual worlds" simultane­ously.

5. As the size of the audience increases, there is a greater chance of mis­interpreting feedback, since there's so much to look for.

6. The speaker must do a more complete job of speech preparation, since there is so little direct moment-to-moment feedback to guide his or her remarks.

7. The problem of adaptation becomes paramount since one message must suffice for many different people.

8. Audience analysis is more difficult and necessarily more inaccurate when many people are interacted with simultaneously.

9. It is sometimes difficult to focus attention on the message because of the great number of distractions a public situation can entail.

10. A greater amount of change is possible in public communicative settings since the message reaches more people in a given unit of time. (p. 25)

In addressing an audience a speaker ordinarily has at least one of three purposes: to inform, to entertain, or to persuade listeners. When that purpose is to inform, the speaker is primarily concerned with the outcome of information gain, an aspect of understanding discussed in Chapter 1. Speaking to entertain is directed toward pleasure, a second outcome that we have discussed. When the speaker's intention is to persuade, the desired outcome is attitude influence. The speaker may try to establish an attitude not previously held by the listeners or to reinforce or change one that they already hold. Persuasive speeches may also attempt to elicit some action. The political candidate ultimately wants our vote, not just our agreement on various issues. The saleswoman wants us to purchase the product she is selling, not simply to be aware of its superiority to other products. Nonetheless, attitude change is the intermediate goal to achieve before prompting action.

Informing, entertaining, and persuading are by no means mutually exclusive purposes. In fact, the classification, though traditional, is thought by some to be rather arbitrary. A persuasive speech about this country's diplomatic relations with China may also be informative and entertaining. Comedians like Joan Rivers and Bill Cosby speak primarily to entertain, yet their material frequently includes persuasive social commentary as well. An informative lecture on animal life, delivered in an entertaining and appealing style, may yet persuade audience members of the need for establishing wildlife preserves.

Most of the public communication experiences in which you find yourself either as speaker or listener will involve some persuasion—usually in addition to information gain and perhaps to entertainment. Therefore, this chapter will give more emphasis to public communication that attempts to be persuasive. We begin with a consideration of the speaker apart from his or her message.

 


Date: 2015-02-16; view: 1338


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