Models of communication


Models of communication are conceptual models used to explain the human communication process. The first major model for communication was developed in 1948 by Claude Shannon and published with an introduction by Warren Weaver for Bell Laboratories. Following the basic concept, communication is the process of sending and receiving messages or transferring information from one part to another.
In 1960, David Berlo expanded the linear transmission model with the sender-message-channel-receiver model of communication. Later, Wilbur Schramm introduced a model that identified multiple variables in communication which includes the transmitter, encoding, media, decoding, and receiver.

Shannon–Weaver Model

Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver were engineers who worked for Bell Telephone Labs in the United States. Their goal was to ensure that telephone cables and radio waves worked at maximum efficiency. Therefore, they developed the Shannon–Weaver model, which expanded a mathematical theory of communication. The Shannon–Weaver model, developed in 1949, is referred to as the 'mother of all models' and is widely accepted as a main initial model for communication studies.
The Shannon–Weaver model was designed to mirror the functioning of radio and telephone technology. The initial model consisted of four primary parts: sender, message, channel, and receiver. The sender was the part of a telephone a person speaks into, the channel was the telephone itself, and the receiver was the part of the phone through which one can hear the sender on the other end of the line. Shannon and Weaver recognized that static or background sounds may interfere with a telephone conversation; they referred to this as noise. Certain types of background sounds can also indicate the absence of a signal.
Shannon and Weaver's original model contains five elements: information source, transmitter, channel, receiver, and destination. The information source is where the information is stored. In order to send the information, the message is encoded into signals, so it can travel to its destination. After the message is encoded, it goes through the channel which the signals are adapted for the transmission. In addition, the channel carries any noise or interference that might lead to the signal receiving different information from the source. After the channel, the message arrives in the receiver and is reconstructed from the signal before finally arriving at its destination.
In a simple model, often referred to as the transmission model or standard view of communication, information or content is sent in some form from an transmitter/emisor/sender/encoder to a receiver/decoder. According to this common communication-related conception, communication is viewed as a means of sending and receiving information. The strengths of this model are its simplicity, generality, and quantifiability. The mathematicians Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver structured this model on the basis of the following elements:
Shannon and Weaver argued that this concept entails three levels of problems for communication:
  1. The technical problem: how accurately can the message be transmitted?
  2. The semantic problem: how precisely is the meaning 'conveyed'?
  3. The effectiveness problem: how effectively does the received meaning affect behavior?
Daniel Chandler criticizes the transmission model in the following terms:
In 1960, David Berlo expanded Shannon and Weaver's 1949 linear model of communication and created the sender-message-channel-receiver model of communication. The SMCR model of communication separated the model into clear parts and has been expanded upon by other scholars.
Berlo's communication process is a simple application for person-to-person communication, which includes communication source, encoder, message, channel, decoder, and communication receiver. In addition, David Berlo presented some factors that influence the communication process between two people. The factors include communication skills, awareness level, social system, cultural system, and attitude.
Berlo's communication process starts at the source, which is the part that produces the message using its communication skills, attitude, knowledge, social system, and culture. After the message is developed, which are elements in a set of symbols, the sender step begins. The encoding process is where the motor skills take place by speaking, writing, touching, etc. The message goes through the channel which carries the message. Then the receiver step begins. The decoding process is where the sensory skills take place by hearing, seeing, feeling touch, etc. Finally, the communication process ends at the destination, which is the part that interprets the message using its communication skills, attitude, knowledge, social system, and culture.

Schramm

Communication is usually described along a few major dimensions: message, source/emissor/sender/encoder, form, channel, destination/receiver/decoder. Wilbur Schramm also indicated that we should also examine the impact that a message has on the target of the message. Between parties, communication includes acts that confer knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions. These acts may take many forms, in one of the various manners of communication. The form depends on the abilities of the group communicating. Together, communication content and form make messages that are sent towards a destination. The target can be oneself, another person or being, another entity.
Communication can be seen as processes of information transmission governed by three levels of semiotic rules:
  1. Syntactic.
  2. Pragmatic.
  3. Semantic.
Therefore, communication is social interaction where at least two interacting agents share a common set of signs and a common set of semiotic rules. This commonly held rule in some sense ignores autocommunication, including intrapersonal communication via diaries or self-talk, both secondary phenomena that followed the primary acquisition of communicative competences within social interactions.

Barnlund

In light of these weaknesses, Barnlund proposed a transactional model of communication. The basic premise of the transactional model of communication is that individuals are simultaneously engaging in the sending and receiving of messages.
In a slightly more complex form, a sender and a receiver are linked. This second attitude of communication, referred to as the constitutive model or constructionist view, focuses on how an individual communicates as the determining factor of the way the message will be interpreted. Communication is viewed as a conduit; a passage in which information travels from one individual to another and this information becomes separate from the communication itself. A particular instance of communication is called a speech act. The sender's personal filters and the receiver's personal filters may vary depending upon different regional traditions, cultures, or gender; which may alter the intended meaning of message contents. In the presence of noise on the transmission channel, reception and decoding of content may be faulty, and thus the speech act may not achieve the desired effect. One problem with this send-receive model is that the processes of encoding and decoding imply that the sender and receiver each possess something that functions as a codebook, and that these two codebooks are, at the very least, similar if not identical. Although something like codebooks is implied by the model, they are nowhere represented in the model, which creates many conceptual difficulties.
Theories of co-regulation describe communication as a creative and dynamic continuous process, rather than a discrete exchange of information. Canadian media scholar Harold Innis had the theory that people use different types of media to communicate and which one they choose to use will offer different possibilities for the shape and durability of society. His famous example of this is using ancient Egypt and looking at the ways they built themselves out of media with very different properties: stone and papyrus. Papyrus is what he called 'space binding'. it made possible the transmission of written orders across space, empires and enables the waging of distant military campaigns and colonial administration. The other is stone and 'time binding', through the construction of temples and the pyramids can sustain their authority generation to generation, through this media they can change and shape communication in their society.

Constructionist

There is an additional working definition of communication to consider that authors like Richard Lanham and as far back as Erving Goffman have highlighted. This is a progression from Lasswell's attempt to define human communication through to this century and revolutionized into the constructionist model. Constructionists believe that the process of communication is in itself the only messages that exist. The packaging can not be separated from the social and historical context from which it arose, therefore the substance to look at in communication theory is style for Richard Lanham and the performance of self for Erving Goffman.
Lanham chose to view communication as the rival to the over encompassing use of CBS model. CBS model argues that clarity, brevity, and sincerity are the only purpose to prose discourse, therefore communication. Lanham wrote: "If words matter too, if the whole range of human motive is seen as animating prose discourse, then rhetoric analysis leads us to the essential questions about prose style". This is saying that rhetoric and style are fundamentally important; they are not errors to what we actually intend to transmit. The process which we construct and deconstruct meaning deserves analysis.
Erving Goffman sees the performance of self as the most important frame to understand communication. Goffman wrote: "What does seem to be required of the individual is that he learn enough pieces of expression to be able to 'fill in' and manage, more or less, any part that he is likely to be given", highlighting the significance of expression.
The truth in both cases is the articulation of the message and the package as one. The construction of the message from social and historical context is the seed as is the pre-existing message is for the transmission model. Therefore, any look into communication theory should include the possibilities drafted by such great scholars as Richard A. Lanham and Goffman that style and performance is the whole process.
Communication stands so deeply rooted in human behaviors and the structures of society that scholars have difficulty thinking of it while excluding social or behavioral events. Because communication theory remains a relatively young field of inquiry and integrates itself with other disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and sociology, one probably cannot expect a consensus conceptualization of communication across disciplines.
Communication model terms as provided by Rothwell :
Humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things. Language is the source of meaning. Meaning arises out of the social interaction people have with each other. Negative responses can consequently reduce a person to nothing. Our expectations evoke responses that confirm what we originally anticipated, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Linear

This is a one-way model to communicate with others. It consists of the sender encoding a message and channeling it to the receiver in the presence of noise. In this model there is no feedback or response which may allow for a continuous exchange of information.
The linear communication model was first introduced by Shannon and Weaver in 1949. In this model, the message travels one direction from the sender to the receiver. In other words, once the sender sends the message to the receiver, the communication process ends. Many communications online use the linear communication model. For example, when you send an email, post a blog, or share something on social media. However, the linear model does not explain many other forms of communication including face-to-face conversation.

Interactive/convergence

It is two linear models stacked on top of each other. The sender channels a message to the receiver and the receiver then becomes the sender and channels a message to the original sender. This model has added feedback, indicating that communication is not a one way but a two way process. It also has "field of experience" which includes our cultural background, ethnicity, geographic location, extent of travel, and general personal experiences accumulated over the course of your lifetime. Draw backs – there is feedback but it is not simultaneous.
Communication theory can be seen from one of the following viewpoints:
Inspection of a particular theory on this level will provide a framework on the nature of communication as seen within the confines of that theory.
Theories can also be studied and organized according to the ontological, epistemological, and axiological framework imposed by the theorist.

Ontology

essentially poses the question of what, exactly, the theorist is examining. One must consider the very nature of reality. The answer usually falls in one of three realms depending on whether the theorist sees the phenomena through the lens of a realist, nominalist, or social constructionist. Realist perspective views the world objectively, believing that there is a world outside of our own experience and cognitions. Nominalists see the world subjectively, claiming that everything outside of one's cognitions is simply names and labels. Social constructionists straddle the fence between objective and subjective reality, claiming that reality is what we create together.

Epistemology

is an examination of the approaches and beliefs which inform particular modes of study of phenomena and domains of expertise. In positivist approaches to epistemology, objective knowledge is seen as the result of the empirical observation and perceptual experience. In the history of science, empirical evidence collected by way of pragmatic-calculation and the scientific method is believed to be the most likely to reflect truth in the findings. Such approaches are meant to predict a phenomenon. Subjective theory holds that understanding is based on situated knowledge, typically found using interpretative methodology such as ethnography and also interviews. Subjective theories are typically developed to explain or understand phenomena in the social world.

Axiology

is concerned with how values inform research and theory development. Most communication theory is guided by one of three axiological approaches. The first approach recognizes that values will influence theorists' interests but suggests that those values must be set aside once actual research begins. Outside replication of research findings is particularly important in this approach to prevent individual researchers' values from contaminating their findings and interpretations. The second approach rejects the idea that values can be eliminated from any stage of theory development. Within this approach, theorists do not try to divorce their values from inquiry. Instead, they remain mindful of their values so that they understand how those values contextualize, influence or skew their findings. The third approach not only rejects the idea that values can be separated from research and theory, but rejects the idea that they should be separated. This approach is often adopted by critical theorists who believe that the role of communication theory is to identify oppression and produce social change. In this axiological approach, theorists embrace their values and work to reproduce those values in their research and theory development.

Some realms of communication and their theories