Wineflirtations

People often are grouped by sociocultural background, a broad category that can include everything from the section of the country in which they live to their racial or ethnic identity. There is a wealth of information available on such groups. The web sites listed at the end of this chapter provide access to a wide array of resources and information relevant to a variety of sociocultural groups. While such material may be fascinating, take the findings with a grain of salt. Remember, it is your audience for your speech that is important.
People from different sociocultural backgrounds often have different experiences, interests, and ways of looking at things. Consider, for example, the different perspectives that urban and rural audiences may have on gun control. Urban audiences may associate guns with crime and violence in the streets, and rural audiences may associate guns with hunting and recreation. A white, middle-class audience might have difficulty understanding what it means to grow up as a member of a minority. Midwesterners and southerners may have misconceptions about each other.
Since most college classes represent a variety of backgrounds, you must strive to reach the majority without ignoring or offending the minority. With diverse audiences, your appeals and examples should relate to those experiences, feelings, values, and motivations that people hold in common. It also may be helpful to envision smaller audiences within the larger group. You may even want to direct specific remarks to these smaller groups. You might say, for example, “Those of you majoring in the liberal arts will find computer skills just as important in your work as they are for business majors,” or “Those of you majoring in business may discover that large corporations are looking for employees with the breadth of perspective that comes from a liberal arts education.” Direct references to specific subgroups within the audience can keep your speech from seeming too general.
If your classmates gave introductory speeches or responded to one another in class, you should have a good idea of the diversity of their backgrounds and interests. This specific information will be much more valuable than anything you can learn from reading about college students in magazines or books. They are the listeners you will address. The more information you have about them, the better you should be able to adapt your message and the better it should be received.

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