Elements of communication

Elements of communication
 Communication occurs when one or more persons send and receive messages, that
are distorted by noise, occur within a context, have some effect, and provide some
opportunity for feedback.
 Be it any form of communication (intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group, mass
communication), or through any medium (face-to-face, on call, or through internet),
the following elements are necessary for successful and effective communication.
1. Context
2. Sources-Receivers
3. Messages
4. Channels
5. Noise
6. Effects
Elements of Communication
 1. Communication context
 All sort of communication takes place in a context, which exerts influence on the context of
your message (what and how you say it). it is divided into FOUR dimensions;
1. Physical context – tangible or concrete environment (e.g. classroom, park)
2. Social-psychological context – status relationship (friendliness, seriousness) and roles of
people, and cultural rules of society (e.g. communication at graduation party is different from
that in a funeral)
3. Temporal (time) Context – includes *time of the day (e.g. for some morning is better), *time
in the history (e.g. messages on racial, sexual, or religious attitudes can’t be understood
outside of their time in history), *time of a message i.e. how it fits into the sequence of
communication event (e.g. the meaning of a compliment is different when you say it after
receiving a compliment, or before asking for a favour, or in the middle of the fight)
4. Cultural Context – related to culture, beliefs, values, behaviour
 2. Sources-Receivers
 Source-receiver is a compound term that emphasizes that each person involved in
communication is both a source (speaker) and receiver (listener).
 You send a message when you speak, write, gesture, or smile. This is called encoding.
 Similarly, you receive messages in listening, reading, smelling, etc. this is termed as
decoding.
 As with source-receivers, this is a compound term i.e. encoding-decoding, as you are
simultaneously speaking (encoding) and deciphering (decoding).
 3. Messages
 The communication messages take many forms, and require either one or a combination
of your sensory organs.
 Communication is not only verbal (oral/written), but also non-verbal.
 Everything about you communicates. E.g. the clothes you wear, the way you sit or smile,
or shake hands, etc.
 There are three types of messages; metamessages, feedback messages, and feedforward
messages.
 3. Messages

 Metamessage – is a message that refers to another message or refers to an underlying

meaning. E.g. All is ok, when actually it’s not. It can be non-verbal, e.g. winking
when lying (obvious), complimenting without a smile (subtle).
 Feedback message – is the one a speaker gets from the listener, as a reaction to what
was said. It may be verbal (yes/no) or non-verbal (smile, pat on the back, punch in the
face). It is both intrapersonal and interpersonal.
 Feedforward message – is the information you provide before sending your primary
message, and it reveals something about the message to come. E.g. introduction
before speech, table of contents, buffers before negative message, etc.
4. Channels

 The communication channel is the medium through which a message passes.

 Communication rarely takes place over only one channel, a speaker may use two,
three or four different channels simultaneously.
 E.g. in face-to-face interaction, you listen and speak (vocal channel), use gestures
(visual channel), emit and detect odors (olfactory channel), touch (tactile
channel).
 5. Noise
 Noise is anything that interferes with receiving of a message.
 It may prevent a message from source to receiver.
 E.g. line static may distort the whole message over call.
 With virtually no noise interference, the message sent and received are almost
identical.
 Noise is further categorized into physical, physiological, psychological, and semantic.
 5. Noise
 Physical noise – is the interference that is external to both speaker and listener, it interferes
with the physical transmission of the message. E.g. screeching of passing cars, illegible
handwriting, sunglasses, etc.
 Physiological noise – is created by barriers within the sender and receiver of the message.
E.g. visual impairment, hearing loss, articulation problems, etc.
 Psychological noise – is mental interference in speaker or listener. E.g. preconceived ideas,
wandering thoughts, biases and prejudices, emotionalism, etc.
 Semantic noise – is created when the speaker and listener has different meaning systems.
E.g. language or dialectical differences, jargon, ambiguous or abstract terms, etc.
 6. Effects
 Communication always has effects on one or more persons involved in the act.
 There is always a consequence, for every communication act.
 The effects are distinguished into three types;
 Intellectual (cognitive) effects – are changes in your thinking, e.g. class lecture.
 Affective effects – are changes in your attitudes, values, beliefs, and emotions, e.g. you
become frightened after watching a horror movie.
 Psychomotor effects – are changes in behaviours, e.g. learning new dance moves, to
paint a room, to use different verbal or non-verbal behaviours.