THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNICATION

COMMUNICATION

Communication, in it most general sense, is a chain of events in which the significant link is a message. Communication is also the transmission of a message from one source or sender to a receiver. It is the process of sending messages, ideas, feelings e.t.c. From one person (sender) to another person (receiver). It can be verbal (spoken) or non-verbal (unspoken). Human communication is about how people send and receiver messages. For communication to be affective a common understanding must be establish. Both the sender and receiver must have the same meaning for the same message. The two people communicating must share understanding of the message constructed. This share understanding can also be called shared experience, psychological frame of reference or homophily. Homophily ensure that this source and the receiver have enough to make communication possible. 

To four journalism scholars, Pearson, Nelson, Titsworth and Harter (2003) communication is the process by which meaning is exchange between individual through a common system of symbols or behaviour. Communication is consider as a process because it is an activity, and exchange or a set of behaviours. Communication is not an object you can throw in your hands- it is an activity in which you participate. David Berlo (1960), a pioneer in the field of communication says, if we accept the concept of process, we view events and relationship as dynamic, ongoing, ever changing and continuous. According to him, when something is label as a process, it also means it does not have a beginning, end, a fixed sequence of events. Communication is always moving. 

 

             Communication involves meaning, which is the shared understanding of the message constructed in the minds of the communicators involved. Suppose a professor ask a student "What is the ontogeny of your misogyny?" although the students hears the words, he or she may not understand what the professor is asking the ontogeny and misogyny is not known (the professor is asking "what is origin of your hatred for women?")

Understanding the meaning of another person message does not occur unless the two communicators can bring out common meaning for words. When you use language, meaning facilitates an appropriate responds that indicate that the message is understood. But the message can be interpreted in mere than one especially the people involve have little shared experience, also known as psychological frame of reference or hormophily. In such a case, a more accurate understanding of the intended meaning can be found out by negotiating, i.e. By asking questions. 

         According to Shannon and Weaver, the element or ingredients in communication include a communication source also known as sender, speaker or writer, a transmitter, a signal, and a receive. The source could be taken as the speaker, the signal as the speech and the receiver as the listener.

In Person to person communication, the encoding function is performing by the motor skills of the source- His vocal mechanisms (which produce the oral words). These are jaws, the teeth, the tongue, the roof of the mouth and the voice box. 

              There is a communication source, an encoder, a message and a channel for the communication, there must be somebody at the other end of the channel.(except in intra-personal communication where the sender is the receiver of the message he send). When one talks somebody must listen. When we write somebody must read. The person or persons at the other end can be call the communication receiver, the target of communication. 

The source may communicate with himself-he listen to what he says, he reads what he writes, he thinks. Just as a source need an encoder to translate his purpose into to the message to express his message in code, the receiver needs a decoder to interpret and decode the message and put it into a form a receiver can understand. 

When you receive or hear a message, the decoding process is in the ears which send it to the brain for decoding. When we saw a message, the eyes send the message to the brain for decoding.

DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION BY DIFFERENT SCHOLARS

Before we trying to know about communication, the very first thing that we should know is the definitions. But in communication, the definitions aren’t as easy as the other. There are a lot of definitions about communication from different people and different culture. Well, check this out.

Sir Simon Lazar

He defined communication as the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information or feelings to a receiver. This means that communication aid in making known the intentions of the sender to the receiver. As an exchange, the both parties involves must have a common understanding of what is being put across. The receiver can also express his own feelings (i.e. Feedback) in order to show his level of understanding of the information.

Zuhail

He defined communication in his own term as an activity of conveying information from place or person to another. Here communication is described as an activity because it involves some process which always cople with time. This means that actions are require in a given period of time for communication to take place. E.g. The encoding of the message by the source, the transmission of the message and the decoding of message by the receiver and possibly a feedback. 

Alexander Gobe

According to him he defined communication as the process that makes common to two or several what was formally the monopoly of one or some. t is known that any one that has a positive information has a power. He decides what to do with the message, either to reveal it or buried it within himself. In order to make known his message, he does it with the aid of communication. Through that what he has being holding deep inside is known to others through hormophily.

Dr. Park

Dr. Park says, communications can be seen to be a social psychological process by which one individual is able to assume to some extent or degree the attitude and point of view of another person. According to Alexander Gobe, he says that communication is a monopoly. For an individual to break the barrier of that monopoly, the receiver must assume to some extent or degree of the attitude and the point of view of the source. Through which the clear understanding and aims of the message will be achieve through a psychological frame of refrences or hormophily.

Wilbur Schramm

He puts it as a central fact of human existence and social process. It is the way by which a person influences another and be influence in return.

Hovland, Janis & Kelley: 1953

             Communication is a process where people (communicator) sending stimulus in purpose to change or to make behavior of other people. 

Berelson dan Stainer: 1964

            Communication is a process sending information, idea, emotion, ability, etc. By using symbols such as words, pictures, numbers, etc. 

Lasswell: 1960

        Communication basely is a process which explain who, says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect.

Gode: 1959

         Communication is a process which makes something which belong to one person become belong to 2 persons or more. 

Frank Dance and Carl Larson

          After read that following definition, and then there is a question in my mind. Why is there much various kind of definitions? Can you believe that in 1976, Frank Dance and Carl Larson collected 126 definitions of communications? Why do those happen? There are some reason that could answer these questions although still unclear in some points. Dance found 3 dimensions that lead definitions of communication. (Deddy Mulyana : 2001 ) First dimension is level of observation. And the second one is intentionality. And the last one is norm adjustment. That 3 dimensions, directly and indirectly become the main reason for this controversy.

Simon Lazarus 

            Here are a few of the best that I have come across over the years.
"Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver."U.S. Arm.

"A communication takes place when one individual, a sender, displays, transmits or otherwise directs a set of symbols to another individual, a receiver, with the aim of changing something, either something the receiver is doing (or not doing) or changing his or her world view. This set of symbols is typically described as a message."William Rice-Johnson.

"Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit. Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the either the direct result of people failing to communicate and/or processes, which leads to confusion and can cause good plans to fail." Pranav Mistry" Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speaks the most universally understood language." Walt Disney.

"The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind." Napoleon Bonaparte.

I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in. Bill Gates.

"To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others." Tony Robbins “Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know." Jim Rohn “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said." Peter Drucker

FORMS OF COMMUNICATION

The four forms of communication identified by John include the following:

- Intra-personal communication

- Inter-personal communication

- Group communication

- Mass communication

* INTRA-PERSONAL COMMUNICATION: This take place within an individual. E.g. A student debating with himself on how use his pocket-money.

* INTER-PERSONAL COMMUNICATION: This take place between to individuals. E.g.. Two friends meet and greet.

* SMALL GROUP COMMUNICATION: This occurs between three to hundreds of people at a time. E.g. A lecturer lecturing forty students in a class.

* MASS COMMUNICATION: It is the most potentially and the most influential form of human communication. It takes place through the mass media. The greatest advantage of mass communication over forms of communication is that it amplifies messages. Media technology is the megaphone that enables mass communication to reach huge audiences that cannot otherwise be reaching efficiently. These potentials to reach vast audience and perhaps motivate them to action are what make the study of mass communication process important.

Mass communication can be distinguished from other forms of communications. The additional complexity in mass communication include gate keeping, in which numerous media people (reporters, sub-editors, news editors, directors of news, controllers of news, etc) have the opportunity to enhance and change the message enroot to the audience. Most gate keepers are invisible to the audience working behind scene and making crucial decision in near anonymity on how the world will be portrays in the evening newscast and the next morning newspaper. 

Other players in mass communication process who influence media messages are government agencies, these are also some non-media institutions like citizens, organization lobbyist and pressure groups that can affect media messages since time immemorial, the process of mass communication has help as the means by which contemporary happenings are conveyed to a news hungry world. People are intensely and passionately concern and interested in what is happening around them.

Accordingly, the profession seeks to satisfy the curiosity and quench on their daily basis thirst or what is present, what is new, what is now. If individuals are to play their part as responsible citizens to the community and the local, national and even international level, they must be adequately inform possessing basic fact on which to base rational judgment and causes. 

THREE CHARACTERISTICS THAT DISTINGUISHES MASS COMMUNICATION FROM OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNICATION

» THE AUDIENCE IS LARGE- For example, five billion people lies on television broadcast to watched Apollo II moon landing.

» THE SOURCE IS AN INSTITUTION OR AN ORGANIZATION-

In general, mass communication is put out by a group of people working together often in a conversation. For example NBS Lafia produces mass message for mass consumption of mass audience. It also apply to NTA, FRCN, AIT. Newspapers too are published by organization not by single individuals. The Abuja base Daily Trust newspaper is put together by Media Trust Nigeria Limited, an organization. Hector (1997) defines organization as the grouping of different types of skills (in this case, journalism, engineering, accountancy, administration etc) air force and facilities to accomplish a freed determine objective (particularly in journalism, the objective is to inform, educate and to entertain).

SOME KINDS OF MECHANISM USE IN PRODUCING MESSAGES-

The mechanism can be a printing press, a radio transmitting towers and the receivers build to receive it signal. E.g. a motion picture projector, a cable television system. But something, as Schramm (1973) point out it "multiplies" the message.

Following from the above, mass communication occurs when information is transmitted to an immense number of people in different places. People who read, listen or watch various station, some sitting, standing, some declining or lying.

PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNICATION

The principles of communication has to do wit the tenet or the law guiding communication.

The definition of communication may be insufficient to clarify the nature of communication. To explain communication in more detail, four communication scholars Pearson, Nelson, Titsworth and Harter (2003) gave seven principles that guide our understanding of communication.

- COMMUNICATION BEGINNINGS WITH SELF:

How you see yourself can make a great difference on how you communicate. Every individual exist in the world of experience in which he or she is the centre. For instance, the way people are treated, inferior, intelligent, gifted or attractive, they will often been acting accordingly. Many communication scholars and the social scientist believe that people are product of how often they treat themselves and the messages others satisfy from them. The explanation behind this point or view was developed by Dean Barnlund in communication theories. He introduce the idea that individual construct themselves through the relationship we have, wish to have, or perceive themselves as having. Barnlund (1970) also developed the idea that six persons are involved in every communication situation concerning two people. These six emerge from: 

* How you view yourself.

* How you view the other person.

* How you believe other person view you.

* How the other person view himself or herself.

* How the other person view you.

* How the other person believes you view him or her. 

The author also consider the various perspective involve in communication and to decentralise of himself or herself in communication. As people our understanding of the is limited by our experience with it.

To applied this perspective let us consider this example, you have a room mate who comes from another country (China) and he practices a religion called Taoism, your room mate religion, believe system and daily habit challenge yours perspective, derived from interacting primary with people in (Northern Nigeria) who hold northern and Muslim habit to an extent that will he tried to improve his own free understanding. Communication share you may be dissatisfied and experience great conflict. By pre-imposing rules of communication derived from your earlier experience into distinctive culture you are about failing this new relationship. If you are about to fail in this new relationship, if you are able to move beyond such a view and allow your perception of your interaction of communication to become a product of your interaction, you may be able to communicate interestingly and effective way. 

Everyday, we experience decentralize of ourselves in communication. As a participant in communication, we are limited of our own view of the situation. A student may distract a conflict with an instructor as unfair treatment: "I know my instructor does not like the fact that, I don't agree with his opinion and that is why she gave me such a poor grade in that class". On the other hand, the instructor might think that "that student didn't understand all the factors that goes into a final grade". Each person may believe that he is correct and the other person view is wrong. As you study communication you will learnt ways of manage such complain.

- COMMUNICATION INVOLVES OTHERS:

The self originate in communication. Through verbal and non-verbal symbol a child learn to accept roles and response to the expectation of others. For example, youths can be influence early in life by what others want them to be. By establishing self image, in such a way the person you believe you are are the ways in which others categories you, positively, negatively, neutral means you receive from other play a role in determining who are you are. 

Communication itself is probably best understood as a dialogic process. A dialogue is simply the act of taking part in conversation, discussion or negotiation, when we describe and explain our communicative exchanges with others, we are doing so from a perspective of self and from a perspective derived from interacting with others. Our understanding of communication does not occur in a vacuum but in light of our interaction with other people. 

In a most obvious way, communication involves others in the sense that a competent communicator consider other person need and expectation when selecting message to share. The competent communicator understand that a large number of message can be share at anytime but sensitivity and responsiveness to the other communicators are essential. Therefore, it can be observe that communication begins with self as largely as others are involves. Others are define by self.

- COMMUNICATION IS COMPLICATED:

Communication, some believe is a simple matter of passing information from one source to another. In a sense, communication defines in this way will occur whenever you have access of information on the web. However, in this most simple case communication did not take place. For example, you can visit a homepage that is written in a language you don't understand, communication did not occur. If the material is highly complex, it might not understand the message, instantly you might likely to repeat what others has spoken to you but absolute no understanding of the content of the message. 

          Communication is far more than simple information transmission. Communication involves choice about multiple intent of the message- the verbal, non verbal and behavioural expect, the choices surrounding the transmission channels used, the characteristic of the audience and the situation in which the communication occurs. A change in any of these factors affect the entire communication process.

- AN INCREASE IN QUANTITY OF COMMUNICATION DOES NOT CHANGE THE QUALITY OF COMMUNICATION:

You may have had a heard advisers and therapist encouraging people to communicate more. "What we need is more communication". However greater amount of commutation will not lead to more harmony or more accurate and meaning. Sometimes people disagree and the more they talk, the more they learn they are in conflict. At other time, people have poor listening and emphatic skills and they misunderstand big quantity of information. Communication defines simply as verbiage does not necessarily lead to positive outcome.

- COMMUNICATION IS INEVITABLE:

Although communication is complicated and more communication is not necessary means better communication. Communication occurs almost every minutes of your life. 

You can not not communicate. You must communicate. If you are not communicating with yourself (thinking, planning, reacting to the world around you), you are observing others and throwing inferences (making comments) from their behaviour. Even if the other person did not send a message for you, you gather observations and draw a specific conclusion. If a person yawns you make think the person is bored with your message. A second person looks away from you and you conclude that the person is not listening to you. The third person smile (perhaps a memory of a joke he had recently) and you believe he is attracted to you. We are continually gleaming meanings from the behaviour of others and constantly providing behaviour that have communicative value from them.

IMPEDIMENT OF COMMUNICATION

There are three barriers we create for ourselves in the listening process. The are noise, perception of others and perception of yourself.

A. NOISE

Noise which is describe in communication as distraction is classified into four treated below:

i. Physical distraction:

These as all the stimuli in the environment that keep you from focusing on the message e.g. Loud music playing at a party. 

- Mental distraction:

This is the wandering of the mind when it suppose to be focusing on something. E.g. Thinking about a lunch day while listening to the teacher. 

- Factual distraction:

Focusing so intently on the detail so that you miss the main point. E.g. Listening to all details of conversation but forget the idea. 

- Semantic distraction:

This involves over responding to emotional-laden words. E.g. Not listening to a teacher when he mention the words "Homosexual Relationship" or "The Boko Haram Theorem".

B. PERCEPTION OF OTHERS

It is the coming of object or events from the five sense of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling or tasting. It has to do with receiving and understanding the information collected through any or the five senses.

- Status:

This involves devoting attention base on the social standing, rank or perceive value of others. E.g. Final year mass communication student not listening to year one in a mass communication students association activity. 

- Stereotype:

It is the generalisation about some group of people that over simplifies their culture. In one way stereotyping is unavoidable. E.g. When you think about lawyers, a generalise image comes to mind (all lawyers are liars). Stereotyping becomes troublesome in communication. When people make assumptions about individuals on the basis of simplify idea about the group on which they belongs. When you meet an Asian, do not assumes they are good at mathematics. When you meet a beautiful girl do not assume she is empty headed. When you meet a Muslims do not assume he is an extremist or terrorist. Our assumptions get us into trouble when we apply to an individual what we guess to be true of the group. Such stereotypes is an ingurious to individuals and groups. Therefore, stereotypes involves treating individuals as if they are the same as others in a giving category. 

- Size and Sounds:

This involves letting the appearance or voice quality of an individuals affect your listening. E.g. Not listening to person dress in rags or to a person with a scrypty voice.

C. PERCEPTION OF YOURSELF

This has to do with how we view ourselves in a communication process. Three factors were seen and discus below:

- Egocentrism:

Excessive self focus or seen yourself as the central concern in every conversation. E.g. Redirecting a conversation to your problems. 

- Defensiveness:

Acting threatened and feeling like defending what you have said or done. E.g. Assuming that the comments of others are hidden to criticism or view. 

- Experiential Superiority:

Looking down on others as if their experience in life is not as good as yours. E.g. Not listening to those with less experience.