[HUMSS_DIASS / Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences]

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[The Discipline of Communications]

The Discipline of Communications

At the end of the topic the students should be able to:
Define communication;
1. Describe the context and basic concepts of communication;
2. Explain the goals of communication;
3. Describe the basic elements of the communication process; and
4. Discuss the levels of communication form interpersonal to mass
communication

Definition of Communication
Communication is the act of conveying information for the purpose of
creating a shared understanding. It’s something that humans do every day.
The word “communication” comes from the Latin “communis,” meaning “to
share,” and includes verbal, non-verbal and electronic means of human
interaction. Scholars who study communication analyze the development
of communication skills in humans and theorize about how communication
can be made more effective.
Humans convey information through a variety of methods: speaking,
telephones, email, blogs, TV, art, hand gestures, facial expressions, body
language and even social contexts. Communication can occur instantaneously
in closed, intimate settings or over great periods of time in large public
forums, like the Internet. However, all forms of communication require the
same basic elements: a speaker or sender of information, a message, and an
audience or recipient. The sender and recipient must also share a common
language or means of understanding each other for communication to be
successful. As such, a study of communication often examines the
development and structure of language, including the mathematical
languages used in computer programming.
The act of communicating draws on several interpersonal and intrapersonal
skills. These include speaking, listening, observing, questioning, processing,
analyzing and evaluating. Recipients of a message must be able to identify the
sender’s intent, take into account the message’s context, resolve any
misunderstandings, accurately decode the information and decide how to act
on it. Such skills are essential to learning, forming healthy relationships,
creating a sense of community and achieving success in the workplace.
As a field of study, communication spans a broad, rich array of subjects,
including sociology, psychology, philosophy, political science, linguistics,
history, literature, criticism and rhetoric. Although much of the field’s subject
matter is theoretical in nature, communication studies have proven

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applicable to business, film, theater, composition, advertising, education,
foreign policy and computer science.
In today’s globalized, media-driven world, communication studies have
become more relevant and exciting than ever. Web developers seek new,
inventive ways to draw Internet users to their websites. Public policy writers
debate society’s most pressing issues. Through linguistics, computer
scientists are developing programming languages that may someday allow
humans to interact directly with computers. Students who earn degrees in
communication often hold highly influential positions as journalists, editors,
university professors, public relations officers, marketing consultants, speech
writers, filmmakers, motivational speakers and political campaign managers.
To communicate is to shape the world.

By understanding how the tensions among individual forces, societal forces,

cultures, and contexts shape communication and meaning, students become
more ethical and effective communicators. Based on feedback from more
than 2,000 students who class-tested the manuscript and over 100 faculty
reviewers, Alberts, Nakayama, and Martin wrote Human Communication in
Society to bring a comprehensive, balanced view to the study of human
communication.

The three authors bring expertise in their specific areas of study to create
balanced coverage in the text. Jess Alberts, a social scientist, focuses on
interpersonal communication with special proficiency in conflict and
relationships. Thomas Nakayama is a critical scholar with a focus on rhetoric
and intercultural communication. Judith Martin rounds out the project as the
interpretive scholar with an expertise in intercultural communication.

1. Personalize Learning—MyCommunicationLab delivers proven

results in helping students succeed, provides engaging
experiences that personalize learning, and comes from a trusted
partner with educational expertise and a deep commitment to
helping students and instructors achieve their goals. With tools
such as MediaShare (our video upload and commenting tool),
MyOutline, and self-assessments in MyPersonalityProfile,
MyCommunicationLab works with students and instructors to
personalize the learning experience and make it more effective.

2. Improve Skill Development and Application— Improving Your

Communication features offer practical guidelines for applying
chapter material to everyday communication. Additional activities
on MyCommunicationLab.com emphasize skill-building and
applications.

3. Engage Students— It Happened to Me features provide a

connection to important communication concepts through real-life
examples written in students’ own words. The book features a
highly-visual format, including eighteen Visual Summaries that
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[The Discipline of Communications]

help students review and understand a crucial concept in each

chapter. Did You Know boxes now include discussion questions to
stimulate student thought and discussion.

4. Explore Examples of contemporary communication--Chapter

Thirteen, Computer Mediated Communication, has been
significantly revised to include updated statistics for internet
use, a new theoretical framework to frame the discussion of new
media use (media deficit and media augmentation approaches), as
well as new discussions on mobile communication technology and
social networking sites (SNS); and, finally, an enhanced discussion
of the connection between societal and individual forces (e.g.
blogging, digital divide, and “Internet connectedness”).

5. Emphasize Learning Outcomes— Chapter objectives help guide

student learning and articulate for the instructor desired
outcomes for each chapter.

6. Understand Theory and Research – Alternative Views boxed

features present research findings that contradict conventional
wisdom, allowing students to make their own informed judgments
after examining both sides of an issue. Students also can access
Pearson’s MySearchLab where they can get extensive help on the
research process as well as access to four databases of credible
and reliable source material (for details, please
see www.mysearchlab.com ). MySearchLab also contains an
AutoCite feature that assists students in the creation of a Works
Cited document (using APA, MLA, or Chicago formats), as well as
Pearson’s SourceCheck, which encourages students to accurately
document and cite their sources.

7. Support Instructors— A strong supplements package along with

activities and assessments in MyCommunicationLab. ClassPrep,
located within MyCommunicationLab, contains videos, lectures,
classroom activities, audio clips, and more.

Goals of Communication
A communication goal is the desired result a communication
strategy commits to achieve. In scientific communication, the main goal is to
promote awareness and uptake of research results. This overarching goal can
be defined in more specific details and divided into different subordinate
objectives. As communication can be expensive (in resources and time), the
more precisely the reasons and objectives behind communicating are defined
the better the resources can be allocated.
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 Communication goals can include motivating, educating, raising awareness
amongst, and influencing decision making in target groups.Examples of
strong, specific, clear and measurable communications objectives could
include:
1. Building awareness of a project or programme among a tightly
defined audience
2. Securing the commitment of a defined group of stakeholders to the
project’s aims
3. Influencing specific policies or policymakers among key and
defined aspects
4. Encouraging increased stakeholder participation on specific issues
type

The goal of dissemination is not just to help practitioners access, understand,

judge, and use the findings of particular research, but also to help
practitioners, over the long term, develop stances as questioners, consumers,
or producers of research.
According to Kyle Bacus 2015, Basic Goals of Effective Communicationis not
just about transferring message from one person to another. In
organizations, communication must be made effective. Effective
communication is really a way to achieve certain goals which consist of the
following:
1. To gain goodwill
2. To inquire
3. To inform
4. To persuade

It can be expected that when communication goals are achieved,

accomplishing the organizational objectives willbe a matter of course

Basic Elements of Communication Process

Seven major elements of communication process are: (1) sender (2) Ideas (3)
encoding (4) communication channel (5) receiver (6) decoding and (7)
feedback.
Communication may be defined as a process concerning exchange of facts or
ideas between persons holding different positions in an organisation to
achieve mutual harmony. The communication process is dynamic in nature
rather than a static phenomenon.
Communication process as such must be considered a continuous and
dynamic inter-action, both affecting and being affected by many variables.
(1) Sender:
The person who intends to convey the message with the intention of
passing information and ideas to others is known as sender or
communicator.
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[The Discipline of Communications]

(2) Ideas:
This is the subject matter of the communication. This may be an
opinion, attitude, feelings, views, orders, or suggestions.
(3) Encoding:
Since the subject matter of communication is theoretical and
intangible, its further passing requires use of certain symbols such as words,
actions or pictures etc. Conversion of subject matter into these symbols is the
process of encoding.
(4) Communication Channel:
The person who is interested in communicating has to choose the
channel for sending the required information, ideas etc. This information is
transmitted to the receiver through certain channels which may be either
formal or informal.
(5) Receiver:
Receiver is the person who receives the message or for whom the
message is meant for. It is the receiver who tries to understand the message
in the best possible manner in achieving the desired objectives.
(6) Decoding:
The person who receives the message or symbol from the
communicator tries to convert the same in such a way so that he may extract
its meaning to his complete understanding.
(7) Feedback:
Feedback is the process of ensuring that the receiver has received the
message and understood in the same sense as sender meant it.

Levels of Communication: From Interpersonal to Mass Communication

We communicate with one another on many different levels. Because we do
not have direct access to the thoughts and feelings of other people, we must
rely on communication to convey messages to one another. There is more
communication than simple using language to speak to one another.
Communication exists on a number of levels and in a variety of forms.

Verbal Communication
Verbal communication refers to the use of symbols in the form of spoken
words to transmit messages. Verbal communication is complicated by the
fact that language is arbitrary, meaning that words change over time;
ambiguous, meaning that many words lack clear-cut meanings; and abstract,
meaning that words are not the phenomena to which they refer. Thus,
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miscommunication occurs when the meaning we attach to a word changes
with time, when a word lacks a clear-cut, precise meaning or when words are
used that are too general. For example, the word "love" is a very imprecise
term; one person's definition of love may differ substantially from another
person's.

Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication refers to the use of symbols other than words to
transmit messages. It includes gestures, body language, how we utter words,
aspects of our environment that influence meaning and objects such as
jewelry, furniture and clothing that send people messages about ourselves.
Research suggests that nonverbal communication constitutes anywhere
between 65 and 93 percent of all human communication. Just like words,
nonverbal symbols are ambiguous. What is a polite gesture to one person
may be considered rude by another person. Certain forms of nonverbal
communication may also have different meanings in different cultures. For
example, direct eye contact is appropriate in U.S. society but considered
disrespectful in many Asian countries.

Intrapersonal Communication
Intrapersonal communication is also known as self-talk or thinking, and
refers to the ways we communicate with ourselves. We use intrapersonal
communication to plan our lives, rehearse scenarios before we act them out,
and tell ourselves what to do or not do. The way we communicate with
ourselves greatly affects our self-esteem. A person who tells himself, "I'm so
stupid" when he fails an exam will likely have poorer self-esteem than
someone who thinks, "I did really well on the previous four exams. I must
have just been having an off day, and I'll do better next time."

Interpersonal Communication
Interpersonal communication is the communication we have with other
people. This type of communication varies from highly impersonal to
extremely personal. The degree to which we communicate, or fail to
communicate, with others influences how our relationships with them
develop, continue or come to an end.

Public Communication
Public communication refers to public speeches that we deliver in front of
audiences. Public communication serves three main purposes: to entertain,
to persuade and/or to inform. It is different from other forms of interaction
in that it requires greater levels of planning and preparation on the part of
the speaker and involves less direct interaction. Audience members still
interact with the speaker via mostly nonverbal symbols, but there is a lesser
degree of give and take than there is in one-on-one conversations.
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[The Discipline of Communications]

Mass Communication
Mass communication refers to any type of media that is used to communicate
with mass audiences. Examples of mass media include books, television,
radios, films, computer technologies, magazines and newspapers. Although
mass communication does include certain computer technologies, it does not
include technologies like email that are used to communicate one-on-one
with someone. Mass communication is responsible for giving us views of
events, issues and people from cultures that differ from ours. It enables us to
learn what is going on in distant places in the world and lets us learn the
viewpoints of people and cultures with which we do not have direct contact.

Glossary
Channels – are routes traveled by a message as it goes between the
senders/receivers.
Context – is among the most essential aspects in human communications and
by and large.
Discipline of Communication- deals with how human use verbal and
nonverbal messages to create meaning in various contexts.
Feedback – is a response of the receiver to the sender and vice versa.
Setting – is essentially the context where communication occurs.

References
Dela Cruz, A. et al. (2017), Disciplines and ideas in Social Sciences (Padayon)
Series) Rex Book Store, Inc.
Mendoza, D.J. et al., (2016), Discipline and Ideas in Applied Social Sciences,
Phoenix Publishing House.
Sampa, E.M. (2017) Discipline and Ideas in Applied Social Science, Rex
Bookstore, Inc. First Edtion.
Tatel, C.P. (2017) Discipline and Ideas in Applied Social Sciences, Rex Book
Store, Inc. First Edition.

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