Final answer:
A persuasive speaker's target audience is best described as those individuals who are open to persuasion, with features like attention and moderate self-esteem increasing their persuadability.
Step-by-step explanation:
The best description of a persuasive speaker's target audience is c. Those open to persuasion. This is due to the nature of communication and how audience members' characteristics such as attention, intelligence, self-esteem, and age affect their receptivity to persuasive messages. For instance, those with moderate self-esteem are typically more susceptible to persuasion than those with very high or very low self-esteem.
In context with related concepts, the central route to persuasion requires an audience that is a. analytical; motivated. Furthermore, the Asch conformity experiments demonstrated that participants conformed to group pressure due to b. normative influences, showcasing the power of social factors in persuasion and decision-making processes.