COMMUNICATION ELEMENTS OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS DEFINITION The

COMMUNICATION ELEMENTS OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS DEFINITION: “The process of sending and receiving messages through channels which establishes common meanings between a source and a receiver”

Communication cont. • Communication refers to the process of humans creating, sending, receiving and interpreting signals • Communication is symbolic, and has both advantages and disadvantages • The two major forms of communication are: • SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

SIGNS AND SYMBOLS • A sign is a natural event that is automatically related to what it represents. • E. g. A “blush” is a sign of personal tension called embarrassment; cow dung on a plot of land indicates that cattle have passed through the area. • All signs have direct inherent connections with what they represent

SYMBOLS • A symbol is person created signals that arbitrarily represent something with which it has no natural or direct relationship. • E. g. Car, radio chair etc • A symbol may represent something that has no tangible form such as love, or an idea that cannot be observed such as democracy.

Symbols cont. • New symbols are being created continually, e. g. Computer softwares • They are convenient for thinking and communicating because we do not need to have those items present to show them to other people • They allow us to communicate through time and space

Symbols cont. • Symbols take a variety of forms: words, numbers, pictographs ( signs for cars and rest rooms, gestures etc, ) • Mis-use and misunderstanding about symbols can be dangerous. • What does spreading of leaves on one side of a major road mean to a foreigner driving on our highways?

MODELS OF COMMUNICATION • The basic model of communication is : • The SMCR model • The SOURCE communicates skills, ideas, attitudes, culture etc. • It encodes the message before it is transmitted

Source cont. • Attributes of the source are: • Should know the wants and needs of the audience • Be interested in the audience and their welfare • Use appropriate materials in preparing the message

Source cont. • Should speak clearly • Should know his or her limitations

MESSAGE • This refers to the contents of what is being transmitted. • It should have a purpose or an objective • The content should be relevant to the receiver • The treatment should be acceptable and conform to acceptable social standards • Treatment can make a message dull or interesting

CHANNEL • The extension teaching methods are the channels of communication • They are classified as: visual, spoken, written or a combination of these. • It makes use of pictures, charts, exhibits or real objects, method or result demonstrations. • E. g. Radio, television, newspapers etc.

RECEIVER • This refers to the audience and end – users of the idea, skill, or method • The receiver decodes and utilizes the message. • Decoding is affected by differences in education, therefore you should know the composition of your audience

EFFECT • This is the outcome of the communication

NOISE • This is any interruption in the normal flow of understanding between communicating parties concerned. • Or anything that prevents a message from getting through to the audience. • There is noise in every person’s head: • This ranges from sudden recall of something to physical barriers or overloads or tiredness.

Noise cont. • To overcome noise one has to do the following: • Improve quality of transmission • Use a variety of teaching methods or channels • Improve attitude of sender • Ideas must be consistent with beliefs of the audience

FEEDBACK • This is the continual evaluation of the meaning a receiver gives to the message to ascertain whether the receiver’s interpretation is the same as the source intended. • It gives opportunity to the source to change or modify the message to suit the receiver, repeat or clarify it.

NON – VERBAL COMMUNICATION • Communication can be through verbal and intentional messages. • Human beings make deliberate attempts to communicate meanings to others. • In such cases we combine several signals into a message.

Non – verbal comm. Cont. • This can be in the form of emphasizing certain portions of our statements to stress its importance. • On the contrary most people are less conscious about the non – verbal forms of communication.

Non verbal forms of comm. • Non – verbal forms of communication include: • Appearance (e. g. Wearing a particular type of clothing) • posture (e. g. standing tall or shrinking) • gestures ( e. g. rapid movements of eyes, impatient tickling of fingers)

Non – verbal comm. Cont. • spatial position (e. g. standing close to someone or keeping a distance). • Shivering due to fright or tapping the feet on the ground • Change in voice or loss of speech

Non – verbal comm. Cont. • From a person’s body language one can often read whether: • That person is at ease or uncertain • Is enthusiastic about something or indifferent • Is happy about something or disappointed

Non verbal comm. Cont. • Most people are unaware that they convey such clear messages / information about their state of mind, and that others interpret these signals and derive meaning from them. • Clearly intentional and sub-conscious messages can be conveyed simultaneously, so that one can send out several, sometimes contradictory messages at the same time.

Communication cont. • Apart from radio, TV, posters and other forms of communication, man made artifacts play a role in non- verbal signals. This is referred to as the material communication media. For example a door in a room may be seen as a medium through which the designer transfer the message that this is the appropriate place to enter or leave.

Comm. Cont. • In the same vein agricultural technologies can be viewed as embodying designers’ knowledge and meanings, constituting tangible expressions of knowledge and hence having much in common with what we call information.

Comm. Cont. • Communication takes place in a historical and relational context. People who communicate with each other often do so in the context of previous communications and experience. They may have a relationship with each other.

Comm. cont. • Communication can be interactive to various degrees. Although all communication is a form of human interaction authors make a distinction between different degrees of interactivity, i. e. the extent to which people make an effort to understand listen to each other.

Comm. Cont. • There is non-interactive communication when people exchange messages which do not refer to each other. In other words people do not refer to earlier statements. An example can be a lecture which does not allow participants to ask questions or a situation where people simply ignore each other’s statements and follow their own independent line of argument.

Comm. Cont. • The second form of communication is reactive or quasi-interactive communication. This is the situation where people are allowed to react to earlier statements in much the same way as a press conference where a series of questions are asked answered.

Comm. Cont. • The last type of communication is full-interactivity in which later utterances address the relationship between previous statements and the utterances preceding these; for example when someone makes a critical remark in relation to an answer given in an earlier question. This can lead to a real dialogue between people who listen to each other and connect different statements through time.

Comm. Cont. • Communication can be synchronical or asynchronical. Regardless of the level of interactivity, communicative responses can be immediate to a greater or less extent. When people meet face to face or talk on the telephone, they respond to each other straight away. We call this synchronical communication

Selectivity in comm. • Communication involves selection process. • It is practically impossible to tell everything you have on your mind to somebody or recall everything you have been told. • Communicating parties make all sorts of selections when sending or interpreting messages.

Selective comm. cont. • Selections are shaped by people’s culture, preexisting knowledge, goals, aspirations and interests in a specific context • On this basis people may frame messages in a particular way, withhold or emphasize certain information, pay selective attention, remember certain things and forget others, select specific areas for discussion and or accept specific interpretations and reject others.

Cont. • Thus communication is very much a social and political activity. • READING ASSIGNMENT 3: • SOME BASIC ANTICIPATION PROBLEMS IN COMMUNICATIVE INTERVENTION

Comm. cont. • On the other hand when people’s response to each other are delayed as in the writing of letters, sending e-mails, articles etc. we refer to this as asynchronical communication. • An important implication to this is that the extent experienced by different parties while communicating with each other may become increasingly different as communication moves from face to asynchronical.

Comm. Cont. • For example a person may make a call in a relaxed or intimate atmosphere to another person who might receive it while very busy or under pressure to finish a job on hand.