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What is Communication?
Güven Selçuk
The Definition of Communication
 “Communication ranges from the
mass media (i.e. newspapers,
magazines, radio and television)
and popular culture (books, music,
films), through language to
individual and social behaviour.” (J.
Fiske)
 As John Fiske says, ''it is
talking to one another, it is
television, it is spreading
information, it is our hair style,
it is the way we dress, it is
literary criticism.''
 As one of the vital features of
human beings, communication is
experienced from the cradle to the
grave and includes all of the
intentional and unintentional
dimensions in our relations with
ourselves, with others, and with
our environment.
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Definition of communication:
To share;
To transmit;
To exchange;
Messages;
Meanings;
Information.
Some Dictionary Definitions
 Communication
a process by which information is
exchanged between individuals through a
common system of symbols, signs or
behaviour (Longman Dictionary)
 Communicate
to transmit information, thought or feeling
so that it is satisfactorily received or
understood.
Why do we communicate?
To survive.
To work with others (cooperation).
To satisfy our personal needs.
To be involved with other people, to form and
maintain relationships.
To persuade other people to think in the way we do or
to act in the way we do.
To gain/exert power or to rebel against power.
To give and receive information.
To gain economic benefits.
To make sense of the world and our experience of it.
To decide on what we think and what we do.
To express our imagination and ourselves to others.
Importance of communication
 As a social being one cannot not
communicate.
 Through communication, and through
the relations of communication, we
define individual and collective identities
 we become who we are in and
through communication.
Features of Communication
 It is everywhere.
 It is continuous.
 It involves the sharing of meaning.
 It contains predictable elements.
 It occurs at more than one level.
 It occurs amongst both equals and
unequals.
Levels of communication
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Intra-personal
Inter-personal
Group
Organizational
Mass
Communication science and the study of
mass communication
Concerns of communication theory and
research
 Who communicates to whom? (sources and
receivers)
 Why communicate? (functions and purposes)
 How does communication take place?
(channels, languages, codes)
 What about? (content, references, types of
information)
 What are the outcomes of communication
(intended or unintended)?
For Example: physicalize a
phone conversation
The picture can be described
as:
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A man (speaks)
Message (to)
A telephone (connected by)
Cables (to a)
Receiver
In communications studies, this
can be put as:
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Sender
Code (Message)
Medium
Channel
Receiver
Sender
 The information source
 Can be individual, group, and
institution
 Image, credibility, and techniques of
the sender have an effect on the
outcome of the communication
process
Code
 A system of meaning
 Sign: the basic physical vehicle of
meaning in a language
 Encode: making code
 Decode: interpreting code
Medium
 The technical or physical means of
converting the code (the message) into
something that can be transmitted along
the channel.
 Of course, media in their historical sense
are quite different from today’s media.
 John Fiske distinguishes three types of
media:
 The presentational media
 The representational media
 The mechanical media
 The presentational media: the voice, the
face, the body, and spoken words and
gestures. These media are particularly
important in face-to- face communications, but
they can also be represented in other
communications.
 The representational media: books,
paintings, photographs, writing, films and,
more recently, web-based information.
 The mechanical media: telephones, radio,
television, computer, etc. Mechanical media
are the transmitters of the two other media.
Channel
 The physical means of transmission
 Light waves, sound waves, radio
waves, telephone cables, the nervous
system, and the like
Receiver
 The destination of information
 Audience: the collective word for receivers
in mass communication process
 Feedback: the transmission of the reaction
of the receiver back to the sender
 Effect: changes on action and attitude of
the receiver
Why is it difficult to define
communication?
 Communication is as many-sided and
complex as life itself.
 Therefore, the complexity of
communication defies a simple
definition.
 Every definition—by definition—
necessarily leaves out and excludes
some other aspect of our social
communication network by drawing the
boundary of communication in one way
or another.
 Also, new socio-cultural and
technological developments are—
necessarily—not included in older
definitions.
 Definitions, necessarily, give a
limited perspective.
limit = boundary
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Harold Lasswell’s famous 5W formula of 1948
asks a number of simple questions that may be
applied to any communication act:
Elements (Factors) of
Communication
 a message
 an initiator (sender) (source,
transmitter, encoder, addresser,
author)
 a medium (or media)
 a mode/vehicle (channel)
 a recipient (receiver) (decoder,
addressee, reader)
 an effect
Process of Communication
 Sender decides message
 Sender encodes message
(encoding)
 Receiver decodes message
(decoding)
 Receiver returns a signal to let the
sender know whether the message
has or has not been understood.
(feedback)