Consider Your Audience

When choosing a topic, questions about your AUDIENCE (88–105) are more difficult to answer than questions about your own interests and values. Although your audience can differ in as many ways as there are listeners, AUDIENCE ANALYSIS (90–96) can help you identify and adapt a topic to their characteristics and attitudes. For instance, you decide that you want to talk about video games, but your audience is a group of retirees. Would they be interested in a presentation about the differences between first-person shooter and role-playing games? Or would this audience—many of whom are grandparents—be more interested in learning if there are cognitive benefits to educational video games for children and even for them?

Then there are subjects—often called toxic topics—that have the potential to turn an audience against you and your message. Only the most skilled speakers know how to approach such topics without turning their audience off. We classify toxic topics into three categories:

1. Topics selected by speakers who are overzealous
2. Topics that overpromise
3. Topics that offend an audience

Overzealous speakers may have the best of intentions, but in their zeal to share their enthusiasm for their chosen topic, they forget to accommodate their audience’s characteristics and beliefs. A student with strong religious beliefs will be on safe ground if they speak about aspects of religious life that are especially meaningful to them. However, if they try to convert the audience to their religion by evoking the wrath of God, they may come across as overzealous. Despite their obvious passion, overzealous speakers are rarely persuasive.

Some topics overpromise—that is, they offer promises that cannot be kept. Would you believe a speaker who claims that you can double your money in a no-risk investment scheme or master public speaking with five secret tricks? If you pick a topic that promises something that audience members may regard as too good to be true, be careful how you introduce and develop your content. A thoughtful audience will be skeptical if you can’t deliver what you promise.

Finally, some topics may offend or insult individual members or an entire audience. Talking about a controversial topic is fine if you are sensitive to the needs and values of your audience. But choosing a topic that is deliberately hurtful or that blames a specific person or group is almost always a bad idea—and isn’t ETHICAL (43–57). To claim that a certain country “deserves damage from natural disasters because they aren’t taking action against climate change” is a toxic topic. But a presentation about why some countries don’t or can’t take action against climate change may be enlightening. If a controversial topic may be perceived by audience members as toxic, you should either refine and narrow the topic or avoid it altogether.

Be sensitive to your audience’s background, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings when you choose a topic. If you are unsure about your choice of topic and you’re able to do so, ask potential audience members if they’d interpret your topic as overzealous, overpromising, or offensive. If there is even a hint of a yes, reconsider your topic. But don’t be afraid to stand by a topic that reflects your deep-seated values if you’re confident you can adapt to your audience’s values and feelings. After all, it’s not that you should say only what an audience wants to hear; adapt what you want to say so that it resonates with your listeners.