Final answer:
Lay audience members are not experts in the subject matter and come from diverse backgrounds. To reach them effectively, attention must be paid to their demographics, knowledge, and cultural sensitivities. Persuasion is also influenced by factors such as attention, intelligence, self-esteem, and age.
Step-by-step explanation:
The type of people who fall into the lay audience category are those who are not specialists or experts in the subject matter being presented or discussed. Typically, a lay audience would include individuals from various demographics and with a diverse set of backgrounds, interests, and levels of knowledge regarding the topic at hand. When creating content or delivering a presentation for a lay audience, it is essential to ensure that the materials are accessible and understandable to people without specialized training or knowledge in that particular field.
To effectively reach and persuade a lay audience, several features of the audience must be taken into account. Factors like attention, intelligence, self-esteem, and age significantly affect the ability to persuade audience members. As research shows, for an audience to be persuaded, they must be paying attention, and younger adults aged 18-25 are generally more persuadable than older adults. People with moderate self-esteem are more easily persuaded compared to those with higher or lower self-esteem. It's also noted that individuals with lower intelligence might be more susceptible to persuasion than those with higher intelligence.