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The Audience's Centrality
The audience is absolutely key to defining and practicing rhetoric. Because rhetoric is democratic, it relies on the interaction and connection between the orator and the audience. In the Phaedrus, Plato lays out the components of good rhetoric. Two of these components explicitly concern the audience: the orator must know the types of speeches and the types of souls that will respond to each speech, and the orator must also know the nature and definition of every word and how the audience will interpret them (Plato 59, 49). I don't pretend to suggest that orators must do this level of preparation-- quite frankly, it's unrealistic and impossible. That being said, I agree with Plato that audience adaptation is incredibly important for the orator. Cicero, too, emphasizes audience adaptation: "Cicero recognized that rhetoric required the orator to consider ordinary citizens... Thus, the orator could not stand aloof from the concerns of the populace" (Herrick 115).
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca also recognized the importance of the audience. They suggested three audiences for the purpose of audience adaptation and the testing of ideas: The universal audience is often more of a mental exercise or imaginary audience. It’s basically an audience of highly rational and reasonable people who are not subject to local morals and prejudices. The audience of one consists of a single hearer who can act like an audience of the orator’s opponents in order to test arguments, provide counterarguments, raise objections, and point out areas that need clarification. This audience is a single, careful critic who in some cases, if the job is done well, can represent the universal audience. The self is also an audience: self-deliberating subjects can take the form of their own audience, as we cannot fool ourselves with poor or false arguments. The self as audience, as a rational being, will be more suspicious of attempts to persuade, and as such is in the best position to critique their own arguments (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca). These audiences are used primarily for the purpose of testing one's ideas, but they underscore how vital the audience is to effective rhetoric. The orator must at all times adapt to their audience.
Who is the audience?
My theory of rhetoric maintains that orators address mixed audiences of both experts and non-experts. Some orators might not like the added burden of having to speak in front of experts, but there are many reasons that it is beneficial to the non-experts, the experts, and even the orator. Addressing mixed crowds of both types is democratic and produces better orators. The knowledge even of experts isn’t definite or all-encompassing. No expert has completely mastered their field or their specialty. Experts can always learn more and they can still be taught. If the orator does their job of appropriately adapting their speeches, they will be able to educate even the experts in their crowd.
Experts hold the orator accountable to speak truthfully and justly—they will know if the orator is misleading the non-experts, and, although they might not be able to voice their corrections at the time, social media and other platforms give experts the opportunity to publicly challenge something said by an orator. Even if experts hold opposing views, this creates the chance to promote independent thinking. Non-experts might have the ability to interact with multiple viewpoints in a way that enables them to think for themselves. Non-experts won’t follow the orator blindly if there are multiple ideas being put forward—experts help reduce the risk of manipulation. One of the social functions of rhetoric, according to Dr. Herrick, is that it distributes power (19). Experts offer the ability to challenge prominent ideologies in a way that can redistribute power away from hegemonic ideas.
Perhaps most importantly, addressing both experts and non-experts is democratic. It’s unfair to prohibit certain people from hearing speeches because their level of knowledge might be too high. Skilled orators should be prepared to address mixed crowds. The sole purpose of rhetoric is not to just blindly educate crowds, but to adapt one’s speech to the audience in order to more effectively educate. They must be prepared and able to adjust their teaching so that all the souls in the audience are guided. In a very egalitarian stance, Antonius states that the orator “must have his finger on the pulse of every class, every age group, every social rank, and get a taste of the feelings and thoughts of those before whom he is now, or in the future, going to plead some issue” (Cicero "Book 1" 223-224). It is vital that the orator, in order to speak well, understand their audience: how they can be taught, what they will be convinced by, etc. And this is the case for all groups of people—experts included. Experts deserve to be taught alongside non-experts with their knowledge in mind, so that the education of all people involved might be more effective.
Works Cited
Cicero. "Book 1." On the Ideal Orator.
Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: an Introduction. Routledge, 2018.
Plato. Plato's Phaedrus. Translated by Stephen Scully, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company, 2003.
Perelman, CH., and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Translated by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver, University of Notre Dame Press.
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