Week 4 - Post 3

            A concept from chapter 9 that interested me was the audience-speaker relationship on page 242. A lot goes into public communication, but I think that one of the most important parts is organizing your speech. When organizing the speech, the audience is always in the speaker’s mind. In the textbook, the structures in the minds of audience members are discussed, which are the qualities that an audience basically judges the speaker on, and is also what the speaker should strive to achieve. The structures are based on beliefs, attitudes, and values. The speaker can offer two types of beliefs: core beliefs and peripheral beliefs and there are three types of attitudes: cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions. The textbook states that the audience comes to the speech with prior beliefs, attitudes, and values, so if the speaker does not take those into account, his or her speech with be rejected, which I completely agree with. That reminds me of politicians who will sometimes lie to their audience, only because they want their speech to agree with the audience.