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Lesson#4
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ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION AND EARLY
COMMUNICATION MODELS
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ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION AND EARLY COMMUNICATION MODELS
Like all the complex objects, communication is also made up of
certain basic things called elements.
A building has its elements in brick, sand, cement, iron, wood,
paints and sanitary fittings. A machine has a
number of components which are all elements joined together to
enable the machine to give desired results.
Communication is a complex business and involves certain
elements which join together to help a message
go across.
In this chapter we will give a long sight to various elements
which have been marked by experts and which
provide the very basics of any piece of communication however
simple it may be.
Elements of communication
Sender
First and foremost is the person who sends a message. Known as
sender in the jargons of
communication, he or she is the chief initiator of any
communication. In fact a communication may not
take place if there is no sender. The sender may be singular and
plural as well. It all depends on the nature
of communication. If a teacher is delivering lecture, it
constitute a case of sender as one individual. Sender
comprising many is the case when a group of people shout
together, or more than one person sing a song
as chorus.
Message
When sender – the source of communication, decides to
communicate he/she encodes the crux of
the feeling in words/gestures or any other form commonly
understood. This encoded form is called
message. It may be a simple word or a very complex and technical
integration of feelings by the source on a
given subject.
Channel
No sooner a message is created by a sender, it enters in the
channel. The channel is part of the
communication process which helps carry the message to its
desired destination. In case of printed words
paper is the channel, in the matter of voice air may serve as a
channel. In telephonic conversation the wire
and the sets make the channel. Some times the channel itself
becomes part of message and sometime
message is sent in a manner that a part of it serves as a
channel.
Receiver
The process of communication may not be complete if the message
does not reach a person, or
persons, it is designed for. Receiver in this process is the
element which is target of the message and actually
receives it. The dimension of receiver is very wide – it may
vary from an individual to an army of people, or
a nation or all nations. Again, it depends what the message is.
Interpreter
Receiving message in most case is half the process of
communication done. In most cases an
interpreter is required to understand – decode – the message so
that the purpose of communication is
served. Noise always occurs at this stage. Noise means part of
meaning which is lost from the original
message. There is hardly a message which is decoded, or
interpreted cent per cent.
Feedback
Sending and receiving of message is a simultaneous process in
which the receiver continuously
sends back its approval or disapproval after having interpreted
the message. This helps the sender to modify
or discipline its message. This element in the communication
process is referred as feedback. For instance a
person is delivering speech, the voices, gestures and facial
expressions – all part of feedback, would help the
speaker to check its loudness, smiles, rhetoric, contents or
time to speak. If there is no feedback, the original
message may never shape accordingly which may distort the whole
communication exercise.
Context9
Every message is delivered and received in a given context.
Change in the background factors
denoted as context, may change the meanings altogether. Context
itself comprises multiple factors each one
of them becomes essential when it comes to interpretation of the
original message.
Communication Model
Communication experts have long been striving to arrange
elements of communication into some
graphic arrangement so that all the complexities of
communication may come in view in a glance. But
before we try to examine them lets try to understand what a
model is.
What is a Model?
• A model is a systematic
representation of an object or event in idealized and abstract form. Models
are somewhat arbitrary by their nature.
• Communication models are
merely pictures; they’re even distorting pictures, because they stop or
freeze an essentially dynamic interactive or transitive process
into a static picture.
• Models are metaphors.
They allow us to see one thing in terms of another.
The Shannon-Weaver’s Model of Communication
The Shannon-Weaver’s model is typical of what are often referred
to as transmission models of
communication. Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver were two
different entities that jointly produced a
model known after their names.
Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver produced a general model of
communication:
This model is now known after them as the Shannon-Weaver’s
Model. Although they were principally
concerned with communication
technology,
their model has become one which is frequently introduced to
students of human communication early in their study.
The Shannon-Weaver’s Model (1947) proposes that all
communication processes must include following six
elements:
• Source
• Encoder
• Message
• Channel
• Decoder
• Receiver
These six elements are shown graphically in the model. As
Shannon was researching in the field of
information theory, his model was initially very
technology-oriented. The model was produced in 1947.
The emphasis here is very much on the transmission and reception
of information. 'Information' is
understood rather differently from the way you and I would
normally use the term, as well. This model is
often referred to as an
'information model’
of communication.
Apart from its obvious technological bias, a drawback from our
point of view is the model's obvious
linearity. It looks at communication as a one-way process. A
further drawback with this kind of model is
that the message is seen as relatively unproblematic. It is fine
for discussing the transformation of
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'information' but when we try to apply the model to
communication, problems arise with the assumption
that meanings are somehow
contained within
the message.
Detailed analysis of the model
The Source
All human communication has some
source
(information
source in Shannon's terminology), some
person or group of persons with a given purpose, a reason for
engaging in communication. You'll also find
the terms transmitter and
communicator
used.
The Encoder
You, as the source, have to express your purpose in the form of
a message. That message has to be
formulated in some kind of
code.
How do the source's purposes get translated into a code? This requires an
encoder. The
communication encoder is responsible for taking the ideas of the source and
putting them in
code, expressing the source's purpose in the form of a message.
In person-to-person communication, the encoding process is
performed by the motor skills of the source -
vocal mechanisms (lip and tongue movements, the vocal cords, the
lungs, face muscles etc.), muscles in the
hand and so on. Some people's encoding systems are not as
efficient as others'. So, for example, a disabled
person might not be able to control movement of their limbs and
so find it difficult to encode the intended
non-verbal messages or they may communicate unintended messages.
A person who has suffered throat problem may have had their
vocal cords removed. They can encode their
messages verbally using an artificial aid, but much of the
non-verbal messages most of us send via pitch,
intonation, volume and so on cannot be encoded.
Shannon was not particularly concerned with the communication of
meanings. In fact, it is Wilbur
Schramm's model of 1954
which places greater emphasis on the processes of
encoding and decoding. We
will discuss threadbare Schramm’s model in next lecture with
special emphasis on the provision of
interpretation of a message for a logical understanding of what
has been sent by the source originally.
The Message
The message of course is what communication is all about.
Whatever is communicated is the
message.
Denis McQuail (1975) in his book
Communication
writes that the simplest way of regarding human
communication is 'to consider it as the sending from one person
to another of meaningful messages'.
The Shannon-Weaver’s Model, in common with many others separates
the message from other
components of the process of communication. In reality, though,
you can only reasonably examine the
message within the context of all the other interlinked
elements. Whenever we are in contact with other
people we and they are involved in sending and receiving
messages. The crucial question for
Communication Studies is: to what extent does the message
received correspond to the message
transmitted? That's where all the other factors in the
communication process come into play.
The Shannon-Weaver’s model and others like it tends to portray
the message as a relatively uncomplicated
matter. Note that this is not a criticism of Shannon since
meanings were simply not his concern:
Frequently the messages have
meaning
that is they refer to or are correlated according
to some system with
certain physical or conceptual entities. (These considerations
are irrelevant to the engineering problem).
The Channel
The words channel
and
medium
are often used interchangeably, if slightly
inaccurately. The
choice of the appropriate channel is a vitally important choice
in communication. It's obvious that you don't
use the visual channel to communicate with the blind or the
auditory channel with the deaf, but there are
more subtle considerations to be taken into account as well.
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Physical noise
Shannon is generally considered to have been primarily concerned
with physical (or 'mechanical' or
'engineering') noise in the channel, i.e. unexplained variation
in a communication channel or random error
in the transmission of information. Everyday examples of
physical noise are:
• A loud motorbike roaring
down the road while you're trying to hold a conversation.
• Your little brother
standing in front of the TV set.
• Mist on the inside of
the car windscreen.
• Smudges on a printed
page.
• 'Snow' on a TV set.
It might seem odd to use the word noise in this way. In this
technical sense, 'noise' is not necessarily
audible. Thus a TV technician might speak of a 'noisy picture'.
However, it is possible for a message to be
distorted by
channel overload. Channel overload is
not due to any noise source, but rather to the channel
capacity being exceeded. You may come across that at a party
where you are holding a conversation amidst
lots of others going on around you or, perhaps, in a
communication lesson where everyone has split into
small groups for discussion.
Shannon and Weaver were primarily involved with the
investigation of technological communication. Their
model is perhaps more accurately referred to as a model of
information
theory (rather than communication
theory). Consequently, their main concern was with the kind of
physical (or mechanical) noise discussed
above.
Transfer of a mismatch between the encoding and decoding devices
to the study of human communication
and you're looking at what is normally referred to as
semantic noise
That concept then leads us on to the
study of social class, cultural background, experience,
attitudes, beliefs and a whole range of other factors
which can introduce noise into communication.
Semantic noise
Semantic noise is not as easy to deal with as physical noise. It
might not be an exaggeration to say
that the very essence of the study of human communication is to
find ways of avoiding semantic noise.
Semantic noise is difficult to define. It may be related to
people's knowledge level, their communication
skills, their experience, and their prejudices and so on. It all
depends on the commonality of experiences on
part of the receiver to understand message from sender.
The Decoder
The notion of a decoder reminds us that it is quite possible for
a person to have all the equipment
required to
receive the messages you send (all
five senses, any necessary technology and so on) and yet be
unable to decode
your messages.
The Receiver
For communication to occur there must be somebody at the other
end of the channel. This person
or persons can be called the
receiver.
To put it in Shannon's terms, information transmitters and receivers
must be similar systems. If they are not, communication cannot
occur. (Actually Shannon used the term
destination, reserving
the term receiver
for what we have called
decoder.
What that probably meant as far as he was concerned was that you
need a telephone at one end and a
telephone at the other, not a telephone connected to a radio. In
rather more obviously human terms, the
receiver needs to have the equipment to receive the message. A
totally blind person has the mental
equipment to decode your gestures, but no system for receiving
messages in the visual channel. So, your
non-verbal messages are not received and you're wasting your
energy.
1949 – Shannon- Weaver’s Model of Communication12
Feedback is a vital part of communication. In the class room
students’ facial expression tell the
teacher to go to what extent to make students understand the
point under discussion. More or less, these
expression would guide the teacher where and when to finish.
When we are talking to someone over the phone, if they don't
give us the occasional 'mmmm', 'aaah', 'yes, I
see' and so on, it can be very disconcerting. In face-to-face
communication, we get feedback in the visual
channel as well - head nods, smiles, frowns, changes in posture
and orientation, gaze and so on.
Why do people often have difficulty when using computers, when
they find it perfectly easy to drive a car?
You'd think it should be easier to operate a computer - after
all there are only a few keys and a mouse, as
against levers, pedals and a steering wheel. A computer's not
likely to kill you, either. It could be due to the
lack of feedback - in a car, you've the sound of the engine, the
speed of the landscape rushing past, the
force of gravity. Feedback is coming at you through sight,
hearing and touch -overdo it and it might come
through smell as well. With a computer, there's very little of
that. In fact you apply more of your brain as
what you must be doing next rather than shaping your activity
whether it’s being liked or not by the
machine.
Feedback by definition
In its simplest form the feedback principle means that a
behavior is tested with reference to its
result and success or failure of this result influences the
future behavior
Though not exactly cut-out for human communication, the
Shannon-Weaver model provides clear
guidelines for researchers to mark more avenues for graphic
presentation of the elements in daily human
communication.
Lasswell Formula (1948)
The sociologist, Harold Lasswell, tells us that in studying
communication we should consider the elements
in the graphic above.
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Lasswell was primarily concerned with mass communication and
propaganda, so his model is intended to
direct us to the kinds of research we need to conduct to answer
his questions ('control analysis', 'effects
research' and so on). In fact, though, it is quite a useful
model, whatever category of communication we are
studying. Note, incidentally, that the Lasswell Formula consists
of five major components, though this is by
no means obligatory.
Harold Lasswell (1948) conceived of analyzing the mass media in
five stages: “Who?” “Says what?” “In
which/what channel?” “To whom?” “With what effect?” In apparent
elaboration on Lasswell and/or
Shannon and Weaver, George Gerbner (1956) extended the
components to include the notions of
perception, reactions to a situation, and message context. |
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