Models of Communication
Models of Communication
l view in communication in another way. The two sociologists say such a view would fit together the
many messages and individual reactions to them within an integrated social structure and process. The
Rileys developed a model (Figure 3) to illustrate these sociological implications in communication.5
The model indicates the communicator (C) emerges as part of a larger pattern, sending messages in
accordance with the expectations and actions of other persons and groups within the same social
structure. This also is true of the receiver (R) in the communications process.
In addition, both the communicator and receiver are part of an overall social system. Within such an all-
embracing system, the communication process is seen as a part of a larger social process, both affecting it
and being in turn affected by it. The model clearly illustrates that communication is a two-way
proposition.
The important point the Rileys' model makes for us is that we send messages as members of certain
primary groups and that our receivers receive our messages as members of primary groups. As you
likely can visualize, group references may be a positive reinforcement of our messages; at other times
they may create a negative force.
i. Claude Shannon, an engineer for the Bell Telephone Company, designed the most influential of all
early communication models. His goal was to formulate a theory to guide the efforts of engineers in
finding the most efficient way of transmitting electrical signals from one location to another (Shannon
and Weaver, 1949). Later Shannon introduced a mechanism in the receiver which corrected for
differences between the transmitted and received signal; this monitoring or correcting mechanism was the
forerunner of the now widely used concept of feedback (information which a communicator gains from
others in response to his own verbal behavior).
i. Westley and MacLean realized that communication does not begin when one person starts to talk,
but rather when a person responds selectively to his immediate physical surroundings.
ii. Each interactant responds to his sensory experience (X1 . . . ) by abstracting out certain objects of
orientation (X1 . . . 3m). Some items are selected for further interpretation or coding (X’) and then are
transmitted to another person, who may or may not be responding to the same objects of orientation
(X,b),
(a) Objects of orientation (X 1 ... X) in the sensory field of the receiver (B) are
transmitted directly to him in abstracted form (XZ ... X 3) after a process of selection
from among all Xs, such selection being based at least in part on the needs and
problems of B. Some or all messages are transmitted in more than one sense (X3m, for
example).
(b) The same Xs are selected and abstracted by communicator A and transmitted as a
message (x') to B, who may or may not have part or all of the Xs in his own sensory
field (X1b). Whether on purpose or not, B transmits feedback (fBA) to A.
(c) The Xs that B receives may result from selected abstractions which are transmitted
without purpose by encoder C, who acts for B and thus extends B's environment. C's
selections are necessarily based in part on feedback (fBC) from B.
(d) The messages which C transmits to B (x") represent C's selections both from the
messages he gets from A (x') and from the abstractions in his own sensory field (X3c,
X 4), which may or may not be in A's field. Feedback moves not only from B to A (fBA)
and from B to C (f BC) but also from C to A (fCA). Clearly, in mass communication, a
large number of Cs receive from a very large number of As and transmit to a vastly
larger number of Bs, who simultaneously receive messages from other Cs.
Strengths
ii. Accounts for a sensory field or, in Newcomb’s (1953) words, “objects of co-orientation.”
iii. Accounts for non-binary interactions—more than just two people communicating directly.
iv. Accounts for different modes. E.g. interpersonal vs. mass mediated communication.
Weaknesses
i. Westley and MacLean’s model accounts for many more variables in the typical communication
interaction. It is, however, still two-dimensional. It cannot account for the multiple dimensions of the
typical communication event involving a broad context and multiple message.
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