SCCA 1023

COMMUNICATION MODELS
 What is a model?
• In the broadest sense, a model is a systematic
representation of an object or event in idealized
and abstract form.
• Communication models are merely pictures;
they’re even distorting pictures, because they
stop or freeze an essentially dynamic interactive
or transactive process into a static picture.
• Models are metaphors. They allow us to see
one thing in terms of another.
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 The Function of a Model
1. To understand the communication process
2. To understand the elements involved in
the process
3. Foundation in the formation of theory
4. Enable the formulation of communication
strategies

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 The advantages of Model
1.    They should allow us to ask
questions.
2.    They should clarify complexity.
3.    They should lead us to new
discoveries

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 The Limitations of Model
1.    Can lead to oversimplifications.
2.    Can lead of a confusion of the
model between the behavior it
portrays
3.    Premature Closure

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 Early Linear Model Non-Linear Model
• Lasswell’s Communication • Schramm’s Interactive
Model, 1948 Model, 1954 

• The Shannon-Weaver • Model Osgood, 1954 

Mathematical Model, 1949

•  Berlo’s S-M-C-R, 1960

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Lasswell’s Communication Model,
1948

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• Lasswell ’s model is used for interpersonal
communication or group communication to
disseminate message to various groups in
various situations.
• It was developed to study the media propaganda
• Lasswell also brought the concept of  Effective
Communication Process

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Disadvantages and Criticisms of
Lasswell's Model
• It does not include feedback
• Ignores the possibility of noise.
• Very linear & simplistic.

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The Shannon-Weaver Mathematical Model, 1949
It is a transmission model consisting of six elements:
1. Information source - produces a message.
2. Transmitter (Encoder) - encodes the messages into signals
3. Channel - signals are adapted for transmission.
4. Receiver (Decoder) - decodes the message from the signal.
5. Destination - receives the message.
6. Noise - the physical disturbances like environment and people.

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  Strengths
• The most common communication model used in low-level communication
texts.
•Significant development.
•Taken as an approximation of the process of human communication.
•Significant heuristic value.
•The concepts of this model became staples in communication research
1.)   Entropy
2.)   Redundancy
3.)   Noise
4.)   Channel Capacity
•Provided an influential yet counter-intuitive definition of communication.

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   Weaknesses
• Not analogous to much of human
communication.
• Only formal—does not account for
content
• Static and Linear

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Berlo’s S-M-C-R, 1960
• The simplest and most influential
message-centered model
• Essentially an adaptation of the
Shannon-Weaver model

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 It’s Significance
• The idea of “source” was flexible enough to include oral, written,
electronic, or any other kind of “symbolic” generator-of-messages.
• “Message” was made the central element, stressing the
transmission of ideas.
• The model recognized that receivers were important to
communication
• The notions of “encoding” and “decoding” emphasized the
problems in translating our own thoughts into words or other
symbols

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 Weaknesses
• Tends to stress the manipulation of the message
• It implies that human communication is like machine
communication
• Assume that most problems in human communication can be
solved by technical accuracy-by choosing the “right” symbols,
preventing interference, and sending efficient messages.
• But even with the “right” symbols, people misunderstand each
other.

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Schramm’s Interactive Model, 1954
• Alteration of the mathematical model of
Shannon and Weaver.
• Decoding and encoding as activities maintained
simultaneously by sender and receiver; a two-
way communication
• The inclusion of an “interpreter” as an abstract
representation of the problem of meaning.
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 Strengths
• Provided the additional notion of a
“field of experience”
• Feedback, Context and Culture
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 Weaknesses
• Schramm’s model, while less linear, still
accounts for only bilateral
communication between two parties.
• The complex, multiple levels of
communication between several
sources is beyond this model.
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