A Wide-Angle View of Communication

1 A Wide Angle View of Communication From birth to death all types of communication play an integral part in our life Whatever your occupation or leisure time activities communication of one form or another has a role In fact if people were asked to analyze how they spend most of their waking day the prime responses would be communicating or being communicated with In reality communication is our link to the rest of humanity But what is communication And what is it we seek to accomplish with it Let us begin to answer these questions by examining what we consider to be the essential ingredients of communication Senders and Receivers Communication involves people who send or receive messages As senders we form messages and attempt to communicate them to others through verbal and nonverbal symbols As receivers we process the messages sent to us and react to them both verbally and nonverbally Sometimes as in face to face communication we may send and receive messages simultaneously This means that the role of sender or receiver is not restricted to any one party to the communication process instead we play both roles And this is a good thing for if we were just senders we might send message after message without ever stopping to consider whether the message was being received as we intended it to be And if we were just receivers we might be open to any and all messages that came our way There are times when it seems as if communication is predominantly one way receivers of messages fail to react senders of messages fail to consider the reactions of the receiver before sending another message But for communication to be effective the messages people send to others should at least in part be determined by the messages received from them The people communicating have some relationship with one another that affects their perceptions of the ideas and feelings communicated Friends usually have greater latitude in how they can say something in order to be understood correctly than do strangers or adversaries That is one reason communication between a public speaker and an audience differs qualitatively from communication between friends or colleagues Field of Experience We each carry our field of experience with us wherever we go When the people communicating have had similar life experiences chances are they will be able to relate to each other in an effective way However to the extent that their life experiences have been different they will probably have difficulty interacting with or understanding each other As our storehouses of experience diverge it becomes harder for us to share meaning Conversely as storehouses of experience converge the sharing of meaning becomes easier For instance males and females can sometimes experience difficulty sharing 2 meaning because they approach the world with different perspectives and life experiences Moreover when we are aware of such differences we may tend to see them as barriers to communication The more one person differs from another the less either person is able to predict the other s behavior Messages The message is the content of a communicative act People communicate a wide variety of messages Some of these messages are private a smile accompanied by an I love you while others are directed at millions a network television show a mass market paperback Some messages are sent intentionally I want you to know while others are sent accidentally I didn t realize you were watching me But as long as someone is there to interpret the results of a sender s efforts a message is being sent Thus we can say that everything a sender does or says has potential message value Consequently whether you smile listen renew a magazine subscription watch a popular TV program or turn away from a person you are communicating some message and your message is having some effect The pure ideas and feelings that exist in a person s mind represent meanings In communication messages are formed by putting meanings into symbols The words sounds and actions that communicate meaning are known as symbols because they stand for the meanings intended by the person using them The process of putting meanings into symbols is called encoding while the process of transforming messages back into ideas and feelings is called decoding Generally because the meanings we assign to messages depend on our own experience other people may at times decode a message differently from the way we intend Channels We send our messages to receivers through a variety of sensory channels We may use sound sight smell taste touch or any combination of these to carry a message Face to face communication has two basic channels sound verbal symbols and sight nonverbal cues However people can and do communicate by any of the five sensory channels A fragrant scent or a firm handshake may contribute as much to meaning as what is seen or heard Some channels are more effective at communicating messages than others and the nature of the channel selected affects the way a message will be processed The impact of a message changes as the channel used to transmit it changes Experience shows that most of us have channel preferences that is we prefer to rely on one or more channels while disregarding other Which channels are you most attuned to Why Adept communicators are channel switchers who recognize that human communication today is an ever expanding multichanneled event Noise Noise is anything that interferes with the ability to send and or receive messages Much of our success as communicators depends on how we cope with 3 anything that can create blocks in the sensory channels and interfere with our decoding process Thus while noise could be sound it does not necessarily have to be It could also be physically discomfort a headache psychologically makeup a poor self concept an inflated ego or a high level of defensiveness semantic misunderstandings as when people give different meanings to words and phrases or use different words and phrases to mean the same thing or the environment a sparsely furnished room a dimly lit office The important point to remember is that noise can function as a communication barrier As noise increase the chances for effective communication usually decrease and as noise decreases the chances for effective communication usually rise Feedback Feedback returns information to the sender of a message thereby enabling the sender to determine whether the message was received or correctly understood There are four ways of looking at feedback First it can be positive or negative Positive feedback encourages sources to continue sending similar messages it enhances or reinforces behavior in progress In contrast negative feedback discourages sources from encoding similar sources it inhibits or terminates behavior in progress Second feedback can be internal or external Internal feedback is derived from the sender s subjective perception of the effectiveness of the message sent external feedback is derived from others who are party to the message exchange Third feedback can be immediate or delayed and fourth it can be free or limited In an immediate and free feedback condition the reactions of the receiver are directly and freely communicated to and perceived by the source At a political rally a speaker knows immediately whether the audience in the hall is friendly or unfriendly In contrast if you want to communicate your opinion of a newspaper article to the editor before your views are received by the intended party and printed several days or perhaps even weeks might elapse Feedback has useful functions for both senders and receivers it provides senders with the opportunity to measure how they are coming across and it provides receivers with the opportunity to exert some influence over the communication process For example if a receiver lets a sender know that a message was not received or was received incorrectly the sender can take steps to alleviate the problem he or she might send it in a different way in the hope that the changes will facilitate receiver understanding Effect Every communication has an outcome that is it has some effect on the people who are party to it though the effect may not always be immediately observable The consequence may be monetary cognitive physical or emotional For example people may profit from the communication or learn something or alter their 4 appearance or self image Context Finally every communication takes place in some context or setting When we interact with someone it is not in isolation but within a specific physical and social surrounding Sometimes the context is so natural that we fail to notice it at other times the context makes such an impression on us that we make a conscious effort to control our behavior because of it For example conside