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FORMS OF COMMUNICATION
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
a) develop an in-depth understanding of the different
forms of communication;
b) examine the different ways of effective
communication; and
c) apply the concepts on effective communication to
actual communication problems.
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ENDURING UNDERSTANDING
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 Every day of our lives, we deal with people, we
communicate with people— with family, with
friends, with teachers, with colleagues, even with
strangers.
 We communicate in a variety of ways. § But we
have to remember that our success or failure in the
communication process may depend on which
among these ways to use at any given
communicative context to maximize our success.
 As Barry and Fulmer (2004) suggest, the key to
effective communication is to match the
communication channel with the goal of the
message.
 Spoken communication makes more sense when
the sender is conveying a sensitive or emotional
message, needs feedback immediately, and does
not need a permanent record of the conversation.
 Written media may be a better choice when the
sender:
a) wants a record of the content,
b) has less urgency for a response
c) is physically separated from the receiver
d) doesn’t require a lot of feedback from the
receiver,
e) or when the message is complicated and
may take some time to understand.”
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GENERAL FORMS OF COMMUNICATION
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1.) VERBAL COMMUNICATION
 refers to the sharing of information, ideas, thoughts,
and feelings between individuals using speech or
spoken communication.
 Examples of verbal communication are face-to-face
conversations, telephone conversations, video chat,
speech delivery, and television and radio
broadcasts.
 Conversation is said to be the most common form
of verbal communication because we do this in our
day-to-day interaction with others.
TYPES OF CONVERSATION (ANGEL, 2016)
1.) DIALOGUE – a cooperative, two-way conversation. The
goal is for participants to exchange information and build
relationships with one another.
Example: Two undecided voters talking to each other about
the candidates, trying to figure out who they want to vote for.
2.) DEBATE – a competitive, two-way conversation. The
goal is to win an argument or convince someone, such as
the other participant or third-party observers.
Example: Two family members from opposite sides of the
political spectrum arguing over politics.
3.) DISCOURSE – a cooperative, one-way conversation.
The goal is to deliver information from the speaker to the
listeners.
Example: A professor giving a lecture on international
politics.
4.) DIATRIBE – a competitive, one-way conversation. The
goal is to express emotions, browbeat those that disagree
with you, and/or inspire those that share the same
perspective.
Example: A disgruntled voter venting about the election’s
outcome.
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SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE VERBAL
COMMUNICATION
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1. Know your audience
2. Know your topic
3. Plan your presentation
4. Be familiar with the venue
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GENERAL FORMS OF COMMUNICATION
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2.) NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
 refers to the transmission of a message without the
use of words. Instead, the message is conveyed
through gestures, body language, posture, facial
expressions, eye contact, touch, and tone of voice.
 Non-verbal cues that can enhance or hamper the
effectiveness of verbal communication:
1. Facial Expressions
2. Eye Contact
3. Body Language
4. Posture
5. Space
3.) WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
 refers to the type of communication that uses the
written language. It includes the traditional pen and
paper letters and documents, electronic documents,
e-mail, SMS or text messages, memos, written
reports, and everything else transmitted through the
written language.
 Written communication is also indispensable in
formal business communication and legal
documents.
 It also takes a longer time to compose a written
communication compared to speech, and some
 people actually struggle in composing a written
communication because of their writing skill.
4.) OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNICATION
4.1) INTRAPERSONAL COMMUNICATION – McLean
(2005) defines intrapersonal communication as
communicating with oneself, and that may include self-talk,
acts of imagination and visualization, and even recall and
memory.
4.2) INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION – This type of
communication refers to the exchange of ideas, information,
feelings, and attitudes between two or more people.
4.3) PUBLIC COMMUNICATION – This refers to the delivery
of a message to a particular group of people, as when a
political candidate delivers a political campaign speech to the
listeners.
4.4) VISUAL COMMUNICATION – This refers to the
transmission of information and ideas using symbols and
images.
4.5) MASS COMMUNICATION – Mass communication is a
process in which a person, group of people, or an
organization sends a message through television, radio, print
media, and social media to a large group of anonymous and
heterogeneous people and organizations.
4.6) COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION –
Computer-mediated communication is often referred to as
CMC. CMC is “the use of an application computer to control
multimedia interactive and message-based communication”
(Walters, 1995).
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VISUAL COMMUNICATION
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
a) exhibit understanding of visual communication;
b) outline the history of visual communication; and
c) come up with their original symbol or image that
communicates an idea.
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ENDURING UNDERSTANDING
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WHAT IS VISUAL COMMUNICATION?
 Visual communication refers to the use of any
image to communicate an idea. Visual
communication may take place through pictures,
graphs, and charts, as well as through signs and
symbols.
 Visual communication can be represented in the
form of a graph, a map, a chart, a Vann diagram, a
pie chart, a model, a table, or even multimedia like
gifs, videos, and images.
 These visual images inform, educate, or persuade a
person or an audience.
 We communicate in a variety of ways.
 But we have to remember that our success or
failure in the communication process may depend
on which among these ways to use at any given
communicative context to maximize our success.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
 Among the most important figures who explored
visual communication and sight- related theories is
Aldous Huxley.
 He suffered from near blindness when he was
young because of an illness, but it sets the stage for
his becoming one of the most influential
intellectuals to have explored the field of visual
communication.
 For him, seeing is the sum of sensing, selecting,
and perceiving. One of his most famous quotes is
“The more you see, the more you know.”
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TRACING THE HISTORY OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
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Sets of evidence that visual communication is the oldest
form of communication:
1.) CAVE PAINTINGS
 Cave paintings are believed to be a primitive form
of communication that were etched or drawn on
cave walls and ceilings.
 These paintings include representations of animals,
landscapes, and religious images, among others.
2.) PETROGLYPHS
 These are images carved on rocks believed to have
been originated by the Neolithic people some
10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
 These images are also believed to have deep
cultural and religious significance to the societies
that created them.
3.) GEOGLYPHS
 These are drawings or designs on the ground
produced by arranging gravel, stones, or soil.
  The purpose of geoglyphs is rather uncertain,
although some researchers believe that they were
built for religious purposes.
 Some of the most widely known geoglyphs are the
Nazca Lines in Peru.
4.) PICTOGRAMS, IDEOGRAMS, ANG LOGOGRAMS
 Pictograms are images that represent physical
objects.
 Pictograms (pictures which resemble what they
signify) and ideograms (pictures which represent
ideas) were the basis of early written symbols.
 Logogram is a letter, symbol, or sign used to
represent an entire word.
 They were used by various ancient cultures all over
the world since around 9000 BC and began to
develop into logographic writing systems around
5000 BC.
5.) CUNEIFORM
 One of the world’s earliest systems of writing is the
cuneiform script invented by the Sumerians.
 They did so not to write stories or letters but to
organize labor and resources.
 Their population had grown larger and their society
had become complex, hence the need for
accounting and accountability.
 The writing system employed signs to represent
numbers, things, words, and the sounds of words.
6.) HIEROGLYPHICS
 It contained a combination of logographic,
alphabetic, and ideographic elements used by the
Ancient Egyptians.
 It is said that hieroglyphs emerged from the pre-
literate artistic traditions of Egypt.
 As writing developed and became more
widespread, simplified glyph forms developed.
 They eventually became the basis on which
Phoenicians structured the modern alphabetic
system.
Indeed, visual communication has come a long way, and it is
now one of the most common forms of transmitting ideas
and information.
We are bombarded with a variety of signs and symbols all
around us which makes the transfer of information readily
available.
In an academic context, the study of symbols and visual
communication is called semiotics.
Broadly, the purpose of semiotics is to analyze how people
make meaning out of images and symbols, and how those
images and symbols are analyzed and interpreted.
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MAJOR PERSPECTIVES IN ANALYZING VISUAL IMAGES
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1.) PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE – This view posits that the
analysis of an image depends on the individual’s thoughts
and values and the way he or she looks at things using his or
her own personal lens.
2.) HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE – This perspective refers
to the determination of the importance of the work based on
the medium’s timeline. Historical perspective may be used to
support a personal perspective which may make it more
valid.
3.) TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE – This perspective takes
into account how different media convey messages
differently based on the platform used. The analysis of the
image takes into consideration its different technical aspects
like lighting, focus, tone, position, and presentation.
4.) ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE – This perspective considers
the moral and ethical responsibilities shared by the artist or
the producer of the image, the subject, and the viewer
5.) CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE – This perspective brings to
the fore the idea that all cultures use symbols to
communicate meanings within groups. It involves the
analysis of metaphors and symbols used in the work that
convey meaning within a particular society at a particular
time.
6.) CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE – This perspective allows the
audience to look at the larger issues associated with the
image, meaning, the issues transcend the image and shape
a reasoned personal reaction.
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ADVANTAGES OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
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 Words are describing but they can be tiring to read
through. Even listening to someone needs a visual
aid to actually picture the information, especially if
there are a lot of numbers involved.
 The idea of visual communication is to make this
capturing of information easier for the audience so
that they only have to observe and draw inferences.
 Visual communication makes the aesthetics of a
presentation better. They not only are easier to
read, but they also make the information more
attractive to look at. Charts, graphs, tables, etc are
color coded making them easier to perceive.
Imagine numbers thrown on a sheet vs numbers
 visually arranged on the sheet using shapes that
are easier to comprehend. A human brain can only
take in limited information and that should definitely
not go into making sense of information. That
should go into why the information is being
presented to them in the first place.
 Visual communication supports the audio mostly.
The literal aim of an ideal visual
communication should be to not need any other
communication at all. This way it’s optimized well.
But Visual communication goes hand in hand with
verbal communication to explain what inferences
are to be drawn from it.