The communication process, models and types of communication

1. The communication process

1. Sender (source): the person who has an idea to convey.
2. Encoding: putting the idea into words, symbols or gestures.
3. Message: the encoded idea.
4. Channel (medium): letter, telephone, e-mail, meeting, notice board.
5. Receiver: the person for whom the message is meant.
6. Decoding: the receiver interprets the symbols and gives them meaning.
7. Feedback: the receiver’s response, which tells the sender whether the message was understood.

Noise is anything that distorts the message at any stage: a bad telephone line, an ambiguous word, a prejudiced mind. In an exam, draw the chain as a line of boxes: Sender → Encoding → Message/Channel → Decoding → Receiver, with a feedback arrow returning to the sender and “noise” marked above the channel.

2. Models of communication

(a) Aristotle’s model (from the Rhetoric). The oldest model, built for public speaking: speaker → speech → audience, with the occasion and the effect added by later writers. The speaker persuades by ethos (character and credibility), pathos (appeal to the emotions of the audience) and logos (reasoned argument). It is one-way and ignores feedback, but it still fits an advocate’s address to the court.

(b) Lasswell’s model (Harold Lasswell, 1948). A verbal formula: “Who says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect?” The five questions correspond to communicator, message, medium, audience and effect. It was designed for mass media and propaganda study. It is linear and has no feedback or noise.

(c) Shannon and Weaver’s model (Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, 1949). Built for telephone engineering: information source → transmitter → channel → receiver → destination, with a noise source acting on the channel. It introduced the idea of noise into communication theory. Weaver later suggested feedback, but the basic model is linear and treats communication as a technical rather than human process.

(d) Berlo’s SMCR model (David Berlo, The Process of Communication, 1960). Four elements, each with its sub-factors:

The key point of Berlo’s model is that the source and the receiver are described by the same five factors. Communication works best when they are at the same level: a lawyer explaining a judgment to a farmer must adjust his language, because their knowledge and social system differ. The channel is described through the five senses. Merits: it brings out the human factors and is easy to apply. Criticism: no feedback, no noise, and it is still linear.

(e) Osgood and Schramm’s circular model (Charles Osgood and Wilbur Schramm, 1954). Communication is circular: each party encodes, interprets and decodes in turn, and both are sender and receiver. Schramm added the field of experience: a message is understood only within the area of experience the two parties share. It suits face-to-face talk and interviews; it fits mass communication less well.

3. Types of communication

By medium

• Verbal: (i) oral, by spoken words face to face, by telephone, in meetings; (ii) written, by letters, memos, reports, notices, e-mail.
• Non-verbal: body language, facial expression, tone, signs, colours, pictures, charts (see the note on written, oral and body language).

By direction (within an organisation)

• Downward: superior to subordinate: orders, policies, circulars.
• Upward: subordinate to superior: reports, suggestions, grievances, appeals.
• Horizontal (lateral): between persons at the same level, for co-ordination.
• Diagonal (crosswise): between persons in different departments and different levels, saving time where the formal route would be slow.

By organisational relationship

• Formal: through the official chain of command; recorded and authoritative but slow and rigid.
• Informal (grapevine): arises from social relations among employees, irrespective of rank.

By scope: internal (within the firm) and external (with customers, suppliers, banks, shareholders, government, the press).

4. Grapevine communication

The term comes from the American Civil War, when telegraph wires strung between trees looked like grapevines and messages over them were unreliable. Grapevine is the informal network through which news and rumour pass in an organisation. Keith Davis identified four patterns:

1. Single strand: A tells B, B tells C, in a chain;
2. Gossip: one person tells everyone;
3. Probability: information passes at random;
4. Cluster: one person tells a few selected persons, who each tell a few more. Davis found this the most common.

Merits: very fast; carries feelings that do not travel through formal channels; helps management judge employee reaction; builds group cohesion; supplements formal channels. Demerits: spreads rumour and half-truths; no one can be held responsible; may damage morale and discipline; distorts information as it passes. Managing it: managers cannot abolish the grapevine but can feed it with correct information, keep formal channels open and quick, and correct rumours promptly.

How this is examined

January 2026 (80 marks) asked “Berlo’s model of communication explain” (6 marks) and “Define communication. Explain the types of communication” (10 marks); the same types question appeared in January 2025. The 100-mark paper of January 2026 set grapevine as a short note. For the types question, start with a definition, then classify by medium, direction, organisation and scope, with an example under each.