What is Communication and Explain the elements of Communication process

COMMUNICATION

Communication comes from the Latin word “communis”, meaning common. When we communicate, we are trying to establish a “commonness” with someone about any information, idea or an attitude.

Definitions of Communication :

1. Oxford English Dictionary explains communication as “The imparting, conveying, or exchange of ideas, knowledge, etc. (Whether by speech, writing or signs).”

2. “Communication is the transfer of thoughts and messages, as contrasted with transportation; the transfer of goods and persons. The basic forms of communication are by signs (sight) and by sounds (hearing).(Columbia Encyclopaedia)

3. Charles Cooley explains communication as “The mechanism through which human relations exist and develop all the symbols of the mind, together with the means of conveying them through space and preserving them in time.”

4. “A giving or exchanging of information, signals or messages by talk, gestures, writing etc.” “System of sending or receiving messages as by telephone, telegraph etc.” (New World Dictionary of the American Language)

5. “In the most general sense, we have communication whenever one system (source), influences another, (destination) by manipulation of alternative signals, which can be transmitted over the channels connecting them.” (Charles E. Osgood)

6.  Longman Modern English Dictionary defines communication as “A sending, giving or exchanging of information, ideas etc.”

7. “A process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs or behaviour, also a technique for expressing ideas effectively in a speech.” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary)

8. DJ. Pall explains communication as “It is a process by which people exchange ideas, feelings, facts or impressions in ways that each gains a common understanding of the message.”

9. Clauds Shannon and Warren Weaver say “The word “Communication” includes all the procedures by which one mind effects another.”

10. Dennis Mecquail explains communication as the “Transfer of meaningful words from one place to the other.”

Elements of Communication Process

At a general level, communication events involve the following elements:
l. A Source
2. A Process of Encoding
3 . A Message
4. A Channel
5. A Process of Decoding
6. A Receiver
7. The Potential for Feedback
8. The Chance of Noise

1. A Source :
A source may be an individual (speaking, writing, gesturing, signing and drawing) or a communication organization (like television station, motion picture, studio, publishing house or newspaper organization).

2. A Process of Encoding :
Encoding refers to the activities that a source goes through to translate thoughts and ideas into a form that may be perceived by the sense. When you have something to say, your brain and your tongue Work together (usually) to form words and spoken sentences. Encoding, in a communication setting, can take place one or more times.
Example :
in a face-to-face conversation, the speaker encodes thoughts into words. Over the telephone, this phase is repeated, but the phone subsequently encodes sound waves into electrical energy. Some people are better encoders than others. in like manner, some machines are better encoders than others. Music recorded on a Rs. 60,000 audio console in a sound studio will probably sound better than that recorded on a pocket cassette recorder.

3. A Message :
Actual physical product that the source encodes, when we talk, our speech is the message. Anything, real or imagined, capable of eliciting one or more responses directly or indirectly from a human, sub-human receiver in a time-free context, is called message.
Example :
When we write a letter at home, what We put on the paper is the message. When a television network presents a “special announcement” it is also a message.

4. A Channel :
Channels refer to the ways in which the message travels to the receiver. Sound waves carry spoken words, light waves carry visual messages. Some messages use more than one channel to travel to the receiver. Radio signals travel by electromagnetic radiation until they are transformed by receiving sets into sound waves that travel through the air to our ears.

5. A Process of Decoding :
The decoding process is the opposite of the encoding process. it consists of activities that translate or interpret physical messages into a form that has eventual meaning for a receiver.
Explanation :
As you read these lines, you are decoding a message. If you are playing the Radio while decoding these lines, you are decoding two messages simultaneously-one aural, one visual. Both humans and machines can be thought of as decoders. A single communication event can involve many stages of decoding. A newspaper reporter sits in on a city council meeting and takes notes (decoding), he phones in a story to the writer desk where another reporter writes or types the story as it is read (decoding). This story is then read by an editor (decoding).
Examples :
The Radio is a decoder, so is a video-tape playback unit, so is the telephone (one end encodes and the other end decodes), so is a film projector.

6. A Receiver :
The receiver is the target of the message-its ultimate goal. The receiver can be a single person, a group, an institution, or even a large, anonymous collection of people. in today‘s environment, people are more often the receivers of communication messages than the sources. Most of us see billboards than we put up and listen to more Radio programmes than we broadcast. The receivers of the message can be determined by the
source, as in a telephone call, or they can self-select themselves into the audience, as with the audience for a T.V. show. It should also be clear that in some, situations, the source and the receiver can be in each other’s immediate presence while in other situations. they can be separated by both space and time.

7. The Potential for Feedback :
Feedback refers to those responses of the receiver that shape of the subsequent messages of the source. Feedback represents a reversal of the flow of communication. The original source becomes the receiver, the original receiver beet the new source.
(a) Positive Feedback :
Positive feedback from the receiver usually encourages the communication behaviour in progress.
(b) Negative Feedback :
Negative feedback usually attempts to change the communication or even to terminate it.

8. The Chance of Noise :
The last factor in the communication process is noise. According to the communication scholars, “Noise is anything that interferes with the delivery of the message. There are three different types of noise :
(a) Semantic noise
(b) Mechanical noise
(c) Environmental noise