Communication is the act of giving, receiving, and sharing information through verbal and nonverbal methods.
Communication ( from Latin commūnicāre, meaning ” To share, impact”) is the act of conveying intended meanings from one entity or group to another through the use of a mutually understood sign and meaning system.
“Communication is an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions or emotions by two or more persons.”- Newman and Summer
“Communication is the exchange of information and the transmission of meaning. It is the very essence of a social system of an organization.”- Katz and Kahn
”Communication is transfer of information from one person to another, whether or not it elicits confidence. But the information transferred must be understandable to the receiver.” – G.G. Brown.
“Communication is the sum of all the things one person does; when he wants to create understanding in the mind of another. It involves a systematic and continuous process of telling, listening and understanding.” -Allen Louis
Two Schools in the Study of Communication
- Process school
- The semiotic school
- Process School
- Process school sees communication as the transmission of the message.
- It focuses on how senders and receivers encode messages and how transmitters use channels and media.
- it emphasizes efficiency and accuracy in communication.
- Communication is seen as a process of affecting the behavior or state of mind of another person
- The Semiotic School
- It focuses on the role of text in culture.
- Concerned with how text\ message intervals with persons to produce meaning
- Misunderstandings due to cultural differences are not communication failures.
- Communication study of culture and text.
- Message signs interact with receives to give meanings.
- sender is less important.
Principles of communication (7Cs)
- Clarity
- Using an accurate manner so that the receiver understands what is originally conveyed
- Difficult task (words have multiple meanings)
- Clarity is maintained by:
- using precise, familiar, and easy words
- constructing effective sentences and paragraphs
- making it easily readable and easy to grasp when spoken out
- using visual aids like illustrations and graphics
- Completeness
- A complete message will have all the facts/details needed by the audience
- Ask 5Ws+1H or journalistic questions (who, what, where, when, why, and how)
- Recognize the receiver’s needs, background, attitude and emotions
- For eg, If you want to write a brochure on your beautiful mountain village to promote it as a tourist spot, you will need to provide a complete profile of the village, including its location, map, landmarks, demographics, culture, travel logistics, estimated costs etc.
- Conciseness
- Using fewest words
- A concise message is without wordiness, awkward constructions and redundancies.
- Conciseness:
- helps to emphasize
- make important ideas stand out
- saves time and resources
- Concreteness
- The message should be specific, definite, and vivid with relevant details
- Concreteness is maintained by:
- using facts and figures
- using image building words or phrases
- using action verbs
- Consideration
- It is keeping the audience in mind.
- It is putting yourself in your audience’s shoes, and empathizing with them, eager to address their needs, always positively and with integrity.
- Correctness
- It is concerned with using:
- correct grammar
- punctuation
- spelling and other mechanics
- proper body language
- proper tone
- political correctness (not using harsh language in terms of ace, gender, religion etc)
- correct facts and figures
- sources
- appropriate language according to the situation (formal and informal)
- It is concerned with using:
- Courtesy
- It involves showing concern for the recipient, being polite, sincere, and thankful to others
- It helps to win new friends
- It is a way to avoid annoying or hurtful expressions
- It is the ability to say ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’ to the audience
