Exploring the Communication Process with Examples

The Basic Communication Model

There are many communication models about why you speak, what happens when you deliver a message, how your audience understands, what the audience decodes etc. There are eight steps of the communication model.

1.    The sender has an idea: Speaker speaks because he has an idea to tell an audience.

2.    The sender encodes the ideas as a message: He has valuable ideas inside the mind. As he expresses, they become messages or information for an audience. So, he expresses his idea in words.

3.    The sender produces the message in a transmittable medium: The sender has an idea, so he choose the best media (oral, written, digital) to give the message. He can phone, conduct meetings or update his social networks status.

4.    The sender transmits the message through a channel: Channel means here system or ways to deliver the message. Its example is a mobile phone.

5.    The audience receives the message: If you choose the right channel and your channel works perfectly, the audience gets the message. If you don’t have sufficient money in mobile to send a large message, your channel (system of a mobile phone) doesn’t work. If your messages are imaginary or lengthy, the audience may ignore to read them.

6.    The audience decodes the message: Before you express the message, it becomes secret (encode) but after your expression, your message will be decoded (understood) by the audience.

7.    The audience responds to the message: After decoding the message, the audience responds to your message.

8.    The audience provides, feedback to the sender: On the message, the audience gives feedback or reaction.

Barriers in the Communication Environment

To communicate perfectly or effectively, there are some barriers of vocabulary, Jargons, euphemism, slangy, abstract and ambiguous words, wrong translation, etc.

1. Vocabulary: If you choose the wrong words in business, it gives a barrier to communication. For example, if you say, “1 have bought a Yamaha good.” Here the choice of the word “goods” is not suitable. You can write in this way, “I have bought a Yamaha product.”

2. Jargon: If you cannot use jargon effectively in a sentence, the sentence becomes ineffective. Jargon is a technical term of a particular field. For example “Citamol” and “Cash Flow” are jargon words of medicine and commerce respectively.

3. Euphemism: It is a polite expression that is used to show respect for people Euphemism of “Ugly girl” is “plain girl” or “homely girl”. So, wrong euphemism can be a barrier.

4. Slang: Slang is those words that can be used in day-to-day conversation but are very informal if you use them in written language. If you say, “He is taking a grass in a cigarette”. Here “grass” is the slang for marijuana. If you use slang in business communication, it is a barrier.

5. Abstract and ambiguous words: Business communication should be sweet, simple, and concise. If you use abstract or ambiguous words, it deviates from the real meaning that you want to deliver.

6. Wrong translation: While translating other languages, it is quite tough and challenging. While translating,’ you should understand author’s culture’  background, history, etc. Otherwise, wrong translated sentences become meaningless.

7. Noise and distracting: Noise is the biggest communication barrier that distracts your communication to reach the listener. Noise is a disturbance that results from traffic, people shouting, hooting, etc.

8. Completing message: Sometimes, you will have many messages to complete at the same time. In such time, you will feel quite hasty and tense to complete

9. Filters: Sometimes, you want to express in detail. At that time, social media can filter your words and doesn’t allow you to use words. For example, generally on Twitter, you are not allowed to use vulgar words in a status. What you want to express, due to filter, you cannot write or post. For example on Youtube, there is a filter that doesn’t allow you to keep vulgar items.

10. Channel breakdown: It is related to faulty equipment. Sometimes, a phone or computer gets a virus, overloaded, or a system crashes. As a result, there appear communication barriers.

Inside the Mind of your Audience

After you deliver the message, it goes inside the mind of your audience. As it goes in their mind, then they respond, comment, assimilate, etc.

How Audience Receive Messages

When the audience receives messages, there happen three events: sense, select, and perceive. At first, they sense that they have got messages, and using sense organs, they read. Those messages which are interesting upon which they pay special attention and only remember interesting ones. Here happens selection. Then they, reading the message, make a positive or negative response or perception. To get a positive perception of your message, follow these five guidelines:

1. Consider audience expectation: You should think or pre-evaluate what the audience expects in your message. For example, if your audience wants a meeting notice to be delivered via phone, you should not inform them via email.

2. Ensure ease of use: What you write, you allow the audience to find your message with easy access. For important ideas, you can show them in bold or italic. For readers, convenience, don’t make it hard to navigate your message (on the internet).

3. Emphasize familiarity: You should use familiar words, sentences, and design. While talking about design, the audience generally wants to see information about your company in a page but not on multiple pages:

4. Practice empathy: Both sympathy and empathy are quite important to run the business smoothly. To practice empathy, you yourself should be the audience of your message. You should be clear whether messages are clear or address audience needs or not. It is called empathy (feeling oneself).

5. Design for compatibility: If you are sending messages via the internet, you should think about your audience’s compatibility with their technology. Let’s get one example: if you have 5 memory and you send a 4 GB message to your friend who has only 3 GB memory. See what happens now. Obviously, he cannot download to read though he is in a free WiFi zone. Being frustrated, he has to visit a cyber zone or use a PC. In YouTube, today’s company doesn’t keep 4K video but keeps 480 P which runs smoothly on any smartphone.

How Audience Decode Message

A speaker delivers the message and the recipient decodes. If they don’t decode messages, such message becomes meaningless. Decoding message is personal. Audiences have different backgrounds, cultures, habits, religions, etc. So, the same messages can be understood differently. Sometimes, they can also distort the intended meaning of the sender. Truly, culture, personal belief, and bias influences enforce them to bring multiple-meaning from the same message.

Like them, the use of language also influences or distorts the message. For example, on a message, “as soon as possible” doesn’t give clear meaning. So, on such a message, the audience may think within 10 minutes, 1 hour, 1 month, or whatever. Similarly, individual thinking style also makes the message decoding differently. If an audience is emotional, another is sensitive, they understand same message differently.

How Audience Respond to Message

After decoding a message, the audience also responds to the message. How they respond to message, we will learn here. First, to respond, they should understand the message and need to remember the message. Memory works in following stages: Sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. sensory memory captures the message only for short time. Short-time memory only pays attention to interesting ideas. It helps to draw attention only to the best ideas. To recall for long time, short-term memory transforms such message into long-term memory. Then while responding to a message, we retrieve (bring) from long-term memory.

Second, the recipient will respond if they find something valuable information. If not, they read once and leave aside their eyes to other important things. Third, if they find something valuable, they will be motivated to respond. To motivate them, a message should be worthy and persuasive.

The Social Communication Model

The social communication model is common in the field of information and communication technology. It tells that sender encodes the idea and later expresses

Then, the listener decodes and responds. In order to respond correctly, a receiver has to decode the message meaningfully.

the sender writes messages using technologies (like Facebook) and viewing them, the receiver decodes the meaning. the social communication model is conversational and usual in which the reader easy to decodes the meaning. The sender uses social networks like blogs, wikis for social communication. If technology is not in balanced order, communication can be distracted and information can be theft.