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Introduction: Imagine a day in your life if you were not able to share your thoughts about the day’s events with your best friend, make a phone call to a family member who lives far away, SMS a friend on her birthday, put up your feet and watch your favorite television show, relax to soothing music on your ipod, or worse, to not be able to surf the net for your assignment. Yet there existed an era that did not have television or newspapers. And computers and cell phones belonged in science fiction stories. Infact, there was a time when communication through speech was not possible because our prehistoric ancestors lacked our well developed language systems. The stages in human communication are associated with the development of speaking, writing, printing and the mass media. The most recent stage is the information age, the outcome of the development of computer technology. Each successive communication development did not replace the one that preceded it. Rather, it gradually built on what was already there. Our ancestors first learned to communicate by means of signals, and we still use them today. For example, waving of hand to greet someone. The human communication problems we have today are not basically different from those that people experienced hundreds of years ago. However, the communication problems cannot be solved by teaching people to master technology, but rather by helping them to gain insight into the phenomenon of communication. Definition of communication: Communication is not easy to define. Scholars have made many attempts to define the term, but establishing a single definition has proved impossible and may not be very fruitful. Some of the definitions are discussed below: Communication is discerning who, says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect.-- Lasswell : (1948) Communication means that information is passed from one place to another – Miller (1951) Communication is the verbal interchange of thought or idea --Hoben, (1954). Communication is the sum of all things one person does when he wants to create understanding in the mind of another. It is a bridge of meaning. It involves a systematic and continuous process of telling, listening and understanding – Louis Allen (1958) It is the intentional transmission of information by means of some established signaling- system – Lyons (1977) Communication is an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions and emotions by two or more persons –Newman And Summer (1977) Communication is the process by which information is transmitted between individuals and/or organizations so that an understanding response results— Peter Little (1977) Communication is the process of meaningful interactions among persons in an organization resulting in meanings being perceived and understanding effected among such persons. – Rustom Davar (1980) Communication is a continuing and thinking process dealing with the transmission and interchange with the understanding of ideas, facts and course of action. – Terry And Franklin (1984) From the above it can be noted that some definitions are broad and inclusive while the others are restrictive. Definitions differ according to the theorist’s views about communication. In the scientific study of communication, there are 2 general and basic views about communication: a technical view and a meaning centered view. Theorists who adopt a technical view deal with how accurately and efficiently messages can be transferred from one person to another along a channel such as a telephone wire or the airways that carry sound and pictures to radios and television sets. Hence from this point of view communication can be very simply defined as “sending and receiving messages” The second and more complex view of communication involves their interpretation and meaning. Meaning-centered theorists concentrate on issues such as what motivates people to communicate in the first place, how they give meaning to each other’s messages what happens between them during communication and how they use language to create and exchange meaningful messages. From this point of view, communication can be defined as ‘a dynamic process of exchanging meaningful messages’ From the various insights given by the different scholars, communication could be defined as a process of swapping information between the communicator and the receiver though channels in which it is effectively understood in order to bring about a degree of change in the mindset between them. Nature of communication: Communication is one of those human activities that everyone recognizes but few can define satisfactorily. Communication is talking to one another, it is mobile phone, it is spreading information, it is your new dress, it is literary criticism. Following are some of the points that help express the nature of communication: Daily activity: Communication is experienced at every moment, every second of our experience. An act done or not done still conveys a message. The act of sleeping on your bed conveys that the body is taking rest while the act of sleeping in class conveys that the individual is disinterested in the subject. The smile on the face of the individual conveys that he is at peace and the blank look conveys that his mind is elsewhere or is deep in his thoughts. Even the act of breathing conveys a message—dead or alive. Signs and codes: Communication can also be expressed in the forms of signs and codes. Signs are nonverbal units of expression. A natural sign is a physical indicator, such as smoke is an indication of the presence of fire. Signs are also called as signals or cues. A sign could also represent an object that produces a mental image of the object represented. For example, the word tree, amber and ki evoke a mental image only if you understand English, French, and Japanese respectively. For this reason, icons often are used by computers and by the transportation and travel industry where customers with many different language backgrounds can yet understand what needs to be expressed. Signs are combined systematically forms codes. For example, same language is a code for people who are able to comprehend it. Meaning: The act of communication produces a meaning. Messages contain 2 types of information to which we attach meaning, namely, content information and relational information. The content level refers to factual information about the topic of the massage—what it is about. The relational level determines how the participants understand their relationship. It provides information about the feelings of the communicator and how the content should be interpreted. Often it is the relational level of message rather than the content that tell you whether a person is expressing affection or dislike, humour or sarcasm. Integral to human society and life: When we communicate, we make things common. We thus increase our shared knowledge, our ‘common sense’—the basic precondition for all community. Shared knowledge, of course, may sometimes lead to conflicting views and interests. However, conflicting parties also need to communicate with each other. Democracy is the most productive outcome of communication. Ever expanding field: Communication is a field that is widespread and highly extensive. It is of utmost importance in the field of humanities and social sciences such as psychology, political science, economics etc. The study of management is mainly on how effectively an individual is able to convert his thoughts into words. Of recent times communication has also been taught as a subject in Media Economy, Political Science etc. Intentional and unintentional: Intentional communication occurs when we communicate with a specific goal in mind. For example, you reinforce your message non-verbally with a smile and a hug. Unintentional communication refers to the occasions when communication takes place without awareness of the communicator. A friend might tell you that he is not upset, while his facial expression could indicate something else. While verbal communication is mostly intentional, unintentional messages are usually non-verbal. Contextual: People always communicate within a situation or a setting. Context refers to the environment, the place or the conditions in which the communication encounter takes place. A doctor’s office is a context, as is the manager’s office in an organization. Communication is always contextual and is influenced by factors such as time, place and physical properties of the meeting place, as well as the roles, status and relationships of the participants. People express themselves differently in each context. Functions of communication: People communicate for a reason. When they do so, they may be doing so for more than one reason at the same time. For example, someone may tell you something that you want to know; their purpose may be to inform you, but at the same time, perhaps, to make an impression you with their knowledge. There are several functions of communication, most of which are discussed below: Survival needs: We communicate with others for the reason that we need to fulfill our basic physical needs of survival(food, water, air and shelter). Apart from this we also communicate to satisfy psychological needs. Psychologists have established that people need contact with other people just as they need food, water, air, shelter. It has been shown that socially isolated people die at a younger age, that the likelihood of death increases when a marriage partner dies and that poor communication skill contribute to coronary heart diseases. Relationships: One of the major purposes for communication is to form and maintain relationships with others. We communicate to be involved with other people. Relationship in this context means any connection, interest or association between 2 or more people. We need to have friends, because friends support each other. We need to get along with our work mates, because working with people is about more than just about job tasks.. Information: We cannot function in our society without information. Information can be obtained through observation, conversation, and some through the mass media. For example we may be keen viewers and readers of the news because we want to know about other people, events and places in the world. Should you need to find out the time a train leaves, you would ask the station master or consult the timetable. Decision making: Some of our decisions are made unconsciously—we do not have to scratch out brains to decide whether to brush our teeth in the morning or not. Other decisions are made together with others. For example, picking a career, or choosing a life partner, or deciding over a holiday destination with friends. Communication helps us come to a mutual and wise decision. Sense of self: We also communicate to gather insight into ourselves. Through communication with others and the way they respond to us, we develop a sense of who we are and how other people react to how we behave etc. Co-operation: We communicate in order to work with others. It is obvious that our need to form social groups actually comes from our need to co-operate with each other in order to survive. Co-operation helps us attain our basic needs or perform any other function of our day to day lives at a great ease. Communication helps us to get along with other people and to work with other people. Persuasion: We communicate to persuade other to believe or feel that what we do and the way we do it is correct. Mass media acts as a vital tool for this purpose. Political leaders use mass media, particularly television, to influence our voting behavior. Also advertisements on a daily basis persuade us to change our buying habits through constant exposure of their goods and services. Convincing people to loan us some money, or to join our drama group, or to help us repair our car are also acts of persuasion. Persuasion has also a touch of manipulation to it —to get what we want. Power/control: Power or control over other people can also be exerted or gained through communication to a certain extent this may seem like persuation—our intention is to get someone else to do something we want. But the word ‘power’ brings an altogether different meaning new into the situation. It suggests that the communicator intends to put the other person in a submissive or helpless position. It suggests that the communicator has special privileges in terms of what they know or the means of communication they can use. Social needs: Man is a social animal. We live not in vacuum but among bodies such as ours. We communicate to hold our society and our organizations together. We communicate so that the society works as a whole for us. Effective means of communication is required to function hospitals, schools, manufacturing organizations and government organizations Need for self expression: We communicate to express our imagination and ourselves to others. We like to be creative with our communication in words, pictures, sounds and other forms. These may be regulated through social conventions. For example, for example when we attend funeral we wear dark clothes. Also we love stories and dramatic creations—fictions which give us amusement and pleasure and explore possibilities and create situations that will never happen. Conclusion: Communication is an integral part of our existence. Perhaps it could be the other name of life itself. Every act, every move made by an individual on this planet communicates something. The way one talks, walks, eats, studies or even sleeps conveys an intentional or unintentional message by the individual to his surroundings. You may be able to get through your entire life without having to make a speech but you cannot get through one single day without communicating something to somebody. Bibliography: Papa Michael, Daniel Tom, Spiker Barry(2008).Organizational Communication (4th ed.).Sage Publications. 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