Communication Research Definition and Communication Model (MLA)

A Definition and Model of Communication

If there is one thing that seems to be a commonality to all people, it is the desire to understand and to be understood. The basic way in which we do this is to send out messages and interpret those of others, to include verbal, non-verbal, art, and other forms of communication. In the basic sense, "communication is the transmission of information, ideas, emotions, skills, etc. (i.e. message), by the use of symbols-words, pictures, figures, graphs etc.," (Berelson and Steiner).

"Communication always requires at least three elements -- the sender, the message and the receiver," (Schramm). Understanding communication can enhance the quality of life for all people because it influences every area of our lives.

This paper will focus on further defining the key words of this definition, and will give a communication model of this definition to further enhance this definition.

A sender may be an individual, speaking, writing, drawing, gesturing, or a communication organization like a newspaper, film studio or publishing house. What happens in the communication process is that the sender takes the information or feelings they want to share and pu

ts it into a form that can be transmitted. The message may be in the form of ink on paper or sound waves in the air, or any other signal capable of being interpreted meaningfully. This act of transforming the information into a message is often also called encoding (Schramm 125).

Perhaps the most famous of all models of communication is the Shannon and Weaver Mathematical Theory of Communication. Communication, according to this model, follows a simple left to right process. The information source, or sender, as explained above, selects a desired message from all the possible messages. The message is sent through a transmitter, such as a microphone, and is changed into signals. In telephone communication these symbols would be electrical impulses and the communication channel a wire. The signals are received by a receiver, changed back into a message and given over to the destination, the listener. One aspect that is different about this model from the above definition is the inclusion of noise.

The Shannon and Weaver Model of Communication has several terms that were not mentioned in the previous definition of communication. The definition of these additional terms is essential to a fuller understanding of communication.

'Sender' is a good term to define this process because it includes all forms of communication, including media such as film or television. One reason that film and other media are such a provocative source of communicating in our culture is that people love stories. Evidence suggests that stories are the basic way to bring understanding to people. Walter Fisher, Communication professor at the University of Illinois, formulated the Narrative Paradigm Theory. He says people are narrative beings who “experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives, as conflicts, characters, beginnings, middles and ends,” (Griffin 322). Sending and encoding is about finding the way to transmit the information, emotions or ideas that can be best understood by the receiver. Films and other visual images lend themselves to this story-telling ability that Fis

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