Thursday, July 3, 2008

COMMUNICATION THEORIES

Communication can be defined as information-related behaviour, a necessary life process. It is basically categorized in interpersonal, machine-assisted and mass communication. There were many types of theories proposed in the way the communication is carried.

The first modern communication originated during the middle of the 20th century, in 1948. This was Laswell's model. It surfaced after World War II during the cold war. Laswell's model was simple. It went from






This can also be broken into the speaker with a message that they want to convey to another person or audience. The speaker must choose the medium by which he to communicate their message.

The next model we discussed was the Shannon & Weaver model. This model was published in 1949. This model has the following steps:


The info source has a message that they transmit. This signal is sent through the channel to the receiver. The receiver gets the signal and the message is sent to the destination. This model is basically the same as the Laswell model, just a little more expanded.
Schramm had three models. The first model was published in 1954. It is similar to the two preceding models above. The first Schramm model has the following steps:
SOURCE--->ENCODER--->SIGNAL--->DECODER--->DESTINATION



Schramm's second model recognized that the source and the decoder/destination was influenced by their field of experiences. In other words, communicating to someone who has some experience or familiarity with the topic will receive the signal in a different way than someone who has not. This is true with source also. Someone who is more familiar with the subject they are "encoding" they will most likely send a clearer signal to the decoder.
Schramm's third model expands again on the first model. It keeps the same basic components but recognizes that there is feedback between the encoder and the decoder.
In 1957 Westley and MacLean's model was published. Their model was the first to specifically model the mass communication process. It recognized that there are many information sources that a sender accesses. The sender edits the information that is sent to the receiver. The receiver sends feedback to the sender

The final model we discussed was Kindcaid's Convergence Model published in 1979. This was by far the most complicated of all models. The model recognizes there is a psychological reality and a physical reality that affects the communication. There is not a black and white outcome and channel of communication. The signal is dependent on the understanding, believing, mutual agreement and social reality between the sender and the receiver

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