Communication Concepts

Communication Concepts

1. Models of Communication

   • Transmission Model
     • "Lasswell’s (1948) model describes communication as a one-way transmission of messages. The model shows the ‘who’ as the ‘source’, the ‘what’ as the message, the ‘how’ as the channel, the ‘whom’ as the destination and the ‘effect’ as the outcome".
     • Circular communication: "Wilbur Schramm's circular communication model says is circulatory and involves feedback. The message is encoded onto language and decoded by the receiver. Meaning is assigned with non-verbal, visual and aural information. "Schramm’s model provided an additional element, the ‘field of experience’, or the psychological frame of reference, to refer to the orientation or attitudes of the encoder and decoder towards each other. "The model also suggested that a message may have different meanings, depending upon the specific context or culture.
     • Serial communication: Messages flow from one party to another in a chain, series or relay. Information may be received second- third- or fourth- hand with the resulting message being distorted and details omitted, altered, or added.
     • "Shannon and Weaver (1949) developed a mathematical communication model based on the work done by Shannon for the Bell Telephone Company in 1949. The transmission model is a linear process, and the message travels in just one direction. Communication occurs only when the content of the message has reached the destination - the receiver.
   • Transaction Model
     • The transaction model allows for ongoing communication between participants.
     • "Barnlund’s transactional model takes a transactional approach with spiral lines that connect the sending and receiving functions rather than simple, directional lines between the sender and the receiver. The spiral nature of the model highlights the continuous encoding, sending, evaluating, receiving, decoding, reacting and responding between sender and receiver. Any stimulus or cue is received, interpreted or reconstructed and elicits a reaction or response. The model identifies ways in which commu- nicators attribute meaning to events. The model is based on six assumptions: communication is complex; communication is dynamic; communication is continuous; communication is circular; communication is unrepeatable; and communication is irreversible .
     • "Foulger’s ecological model of communication - "the “who” are the creators of messages, the “says what” are the messages, the “in which channel” is elaborated into languages (which are the content of channels) and media (which channels are a component of), the “to whom” are the consumers of messages, and the effects are found in various relationships between the primitives, including relationships, perspectives, attributions, "interpretations, and the continuing evolution of languages and media.’"
       • 1)All communication is mediated. 2)Communication is mediated by three separate but interrelated constructs: (1) the message, (2) the languages that the message is encoded in, and (3) the medium or media in which the encoded message is transmitted, stored and/or processed. 3)When engaged in the process of communication, people act in two distinct roles: creator and consumer. The creation role is associated with the instantiation of representations of meaning. The consumption role is associated with the interpretation of representations of meaning. Each role has a different rela- tionship to communication, even when both roles are concurrently associated with the same person. 4)Communication is instantiated in messages. 5)Messages are instantiated using language and media. 6)People must learn language and media in order to be able to create and interpret messages.
         • 7)People create (e.g. invent and evolve) languages and media. 8)Languages are instantiated using media. "Every medium entails a set of possibilities for language that shapes what languages are used. 9 Consumption of messages allows consumers to form perceptions of and even establish (at least in their own minds) relationships with the creators of messages.

2. PAGES 9-15

3. "Berlo’s S-M-C-R model - A human dimension was added to the transmission model of communication in the 1950s and 1960s. Berlo’s (1960) S-M-C-R model is a process model of communication. The four elements in the model are: S-a communication source or generator-of-messages, M-the message as the central element (stresses the transmission of ideas), C- the channels through which the sender encodes (words or other symbols) and the receiver decodes (words or other symbols) the message ,R- the receivers as the targets of communication from the source."

   • "The source, according to Berlo, is a person or group of people with a purpose, a reason for engaging in communication. The purpose of the source has to be expressed in the form of a message, which Berlo saw as being translated into a code—a language—a systematic set of symbols structured to achieve meaning. The encoder is responsible for taking the ideas of the source and expressing the source’s purpose in the form of a message. The channel, or medium, carries the message, which is then decoded, retranslated and put into a form that the receiver can use. In Berlo’s model the channel is related to the five senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

4. "Dance’s helical spiral - "depicts communication as a dynamic process that evolves in an individ- ual from birth to the current point in time. ‘At any and all times, the helix gives geometrical testimony to the concept that communication while moving forward is at the same moment coming back upon itself and "being affected by its past behavior, for the coming curve of the helix is fundamentally affected by the curve from which it emerges.