On June 12th, 1987, Ronald Raegan stood on stage against the geopolitical background of the Berlin Wall and gave one of his most iconic speeches. Reagan, the 40th president of the United States of America, was urging the Soviet Union leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. The crowd in front of the stage, along with the people on the other side of the wall, bordering countries, and the people of the United States were tuned in and eager to hear what the president had to say. President Reagan starts out his speech by giving some background knowledge on the history of the wall and the country of Germany. In Chapter 6 of a Speaker’s Guidebook, it is stated that audience analysis is the single most critical aspect of preparing for a speech (83). It also states that it is important to understands questions like, “What are your listeners’ attitudes with respect to your topic? What might they need or want to know? How will their values influence their response to your presentation? How much do audience members …show more content…
For example, his eye contact. Reagan looked down at his notes on the podium in front of him more than he did the audience. Chapter 17 suggest that for a speaker to give a good speech he or she must become familiar enough with the speech so that the speaker can establish eye contact (252). In Reagan’s defense, the book also says “true eye contact with audience is unlikely, and memorization invites potential disaster during a speech because there is always the possibility of a mental lapse or block”, but he could have been more familiar with it. It was obvious that Reagan had not practiced his speech enough to be ready to present in front this large of an audience. Although what he was saying was good content, the audience might not have related to him as much because of the lack of eye