SPC 2608: EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDEAudience & Listening Skills Be Audience-centered Don’t be ethnocentric- Ethnocentrism: is the belief that our cultural norms and perspectives are superior to others. Don’t pander- Pandering: abandoning our own convictions to cater to the whims of others. Most of us only remember 50% of what we hear. Hearing: the biological process between ear and brain. Listening: making a conscious effort to hear. Or “the process of giving thoughtful attention to another person’s words and understanding what you hear.” Components of Listening Hearing Attending Understanding Remembering Functions of Listening Information reception Empathy Criticism and discrimination Other-affirmation Types of listening Discriminative: when we listen for the hidden meaning. Comprehensive: when we listen in order to understand. Appreciative: when we listen for pure enjoyment. Empathetic: when we listen to someone else’s problem or situation in order to lend support not advice. Critical: when we hear, understand, evaluate, and assign worth to a message. Barriers to listening Hearing problems Amount of input Personal concerns (“semantic noise”) Rapid thought Noise Poor listening habits Pseudo listening: an imitation of the real thing. Stage hogging: only interested in what we have to say. Defensive listening: taking innocent comments as personal attacks. Four tips for remembering things1 Organization: find pattern, order Association: make connections with what you already know. Visualization: picture what’s happening. Repetition: repeat verbs and phrases (while using 3 tips above) Five Key Elements of MMS (Monroe’s Motivated Sequence) Attention: get it! (intro) Need = the problem. (body) Satisfaction = the solution. (body) Visualization: helps us to see into the future. (body) Action: tell us exactly what to do. (conclusion)Persuasion Use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Persuasive Speech: you’re looking to influence other people’s attitudes, beliefs, values, and/or behaviors. Behaviors are the easiest thing to change. Attitudes: our general evaluations of people, ideas, objects, or events. (2nd easiest) Beliefs: the way we perceive reality – our feelings about what is true. (3rd easiest) Values: enduring values about what is right or wrong. (hardest thing to change) Ask: what do you want your audience to do? Buy, change, choose, donate, establish, etc. Argument is articulating a position with support of evidence and reason – this shows our willingness to argue our point of view. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence (MMS) Outline Introduction- 1. Attention- 2. Topic- 3. Relevance- 4. Credibility- 5. Preview Body- 1. Need- 2. Satisfaction- 3. Visualization Conclusion- 1. Call to actionEthical Persuasion Ethical communication and persuasion are ideal. What is persuasion? Aristotle called persuasion “the art” or “rhetoric” and defined it as:2- “The faculty of observing in a given case the available means of persuasion.” Persuasion: symbolic, non-coercive influence.- Symbolic communication: language is our symbolic representation of reality.- Non-coercive: not forced, we have a choice. Persuasion as enlightenment An opportunity to view a different aspect. Theory of Communicative Action (Jergan Habermas) Strategic communication: persuading at all costs (bad) Communicative action: arguing to create understanding (not just to win – good) Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) Audience members will mentally process your persuasive message by one of two routes, depending on their degree of involvement in the message.- Central processing: they give thoughtful consideration to the ideas and content in the message; they are motivated and able to think critically about a message. Central route- Peripheral processing: they may be persuaded by factors that have nothing to do with the actual content of the message itself; they pay little attention and respond to the message as being irrelevant, too complex to follow, or just plain unimportant. Weak messages Low receiver involvement and motivation Not processed cognitively Ethical persuasion should be careful, deliberate, and non-offensive communication. Checklist for responsible persuasion: (this is explained further in the “ethical persuasion” Bb handout) Content – where, the climate- Equal opportunity to persuade- Complete revelation of agendas- Critical receivers Agent – the persuader- Takes communication seriously- Fosters informed choice- Appeals to the best in people Receiver – the audience- Aware of attempts to influence- Informed about important topics- Know their own biases- Aware of methods of persuasion Argument: articulating a stated position with support of evidence and reason. Aggressiveness: winning by inflicting psychological pain by attacking the other person or their self-concept instead of the issue. Our goal should be communicating ethically vs. simply trying to win. Enlightened self-interest: aware that you’re both trying to argue to a particular goal.3 Why do we communicate in other ways? Fallacious reasoning (Bb handout – these are common fallacies)- Ad Hominem - Attacking the person rather than the person’s argument. Name calling.- Inconsistency - A contradiction in word or action without justification.- Invincible Ignorance - Insisting on the legitimacy of an idea or principle despite contradictory facts.- Slippery Slope - Argument which bases objection to a particular action because it supposedly will inevitably lead to a similar but less desirable action, which in turn will lead toan even less desirable action, and so on down the slippery slope.- Ambiguity - Using a word or phrase in such a way that its meaning is not clear, or can be taken in more that one way. Using terms for which not everyone is aware of the intended meaning or definition.- Hasty Conclusion - Making a judgment based on insufficient evidence.- Is/Ought - Assuming that because something is a certain way, it ought to be that way.- Provincialism - Seeing things exclusively through the eyes of one’s own group, organization, or affiliation.- Questionable Claim - A claim that is too broad or general to survive scrutiny. “Best…
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