Download Communication Models: An Evolution of Understanding and more Study notes Communication in PDF only on Docsity!
1 Communication by Design: How Models
Contribute to our Understanding of
Interpersonal Communication
Words to describe things often seem inadequate and inappropriate; they also mean different things to different people. It’s an instinct to try communicating in other ways – marks resembling animals on a cave wall, for example – full of meaning at least for those who created the images and for whom they were created. The study of commu- nication has itself often switched into a language of lines, boxes, circles, triangles and spirals, assembled into models of concept and process. These do not stand alone. They supplement text. They do not say everything, but what they do say, they fix, and they are memorable and useful. This chapter looks at how models have been used as devices of analysis and aids to understanding, and notes that the evolution of models progresses alongside, and contributes to, the evolution of the study of communication.
Introduction
The word ‘model’ has many meanings. It suggests an ideal: something to measure oneself against. We talk of ‘role models’ whose conduct is in some way an inspiration to us all. We also make models, simplified versions of the real – a model aeroplane. In the study of communication, models aspire to the ideal but are also simplifications of reality. They are about identifying the elements of a process and then suggesting how, through connection, they work in a generalized way. The evolution of models matches the development of the study of communication; or one might say that the study of communication has often worked through the development of models. Both have a fairly specific his- tory, tending to have been born out of a number of related disciplines – sociology, psychology, linguistics, rhetoric (ancient and modern) and tele- communications, to name but a few. It is risky to claim exactly when a study took on sufficient substance to be worthy of attention. We could go back as far as 450 BC when Aspasia founded
a school of philosophy and rhetoric, and among the key figures of the history of communication would be Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintillian and St Augustine of Hippo. However, for the purpose of this chapter, let us ear- mark the late 1940s and 1950s, a period when the world still reeled from the effects of the Second World War.
The propagandist frame
What in particular attracted the twentieth century pioneers of communica- tion and media studies was the apparent success of the Nazi propaganda machine in preparing the German people to embrace Aryan mythology, racial superiority and of course, hatred of those peoples, especially Jews but also including the gypsy population of Europe, who did not match, physically, the Aryan type. How did a people with a long history of magnificent culture fall for the Nazi myth? This was a question posed by one of the first communication model-makers, Harold Lasswell. Arising out of his musings, researches and observations, he posed, in 1948, a model in question form which has been added to, tinkered with, but remained of value ever since:
Who Says What In which Channel To Whom With what Effect?
The model seems to us now fairly obvious, even simplistic, but let us give credit where it is due: Lasswell identifies five key areas of study, which, by and large, have proved the bedrock structure of the study of communication ever since. ‘Who’ alerts us to the communicator or communicators. It invites us to ask the questions, just who are the communicators in any situation; what motivates them, what makes them tick; what’s special or singular about them and what is their intention? We are set upon a course of identification, beginning with an identifi- cation parade: are these, as it were, ‘the usual suspects’; where are they coming from, with what intellectual, cultural or ideological baggage; and in being communicators, professional or otherwise, what are the constraints that impact on their work; what are the pressures that influence them from day to day? In turn, ‘What?’ is about the text, the comment, the content, the dis- course, the message, and we are free to note that What presupposes Not-
telephone) and heads to its destination via the telephone receiver. Now every model worth its salt has one or a number of salient features; that is, something of value to our understanding of process. Noise is the salient feature of the Shannon and Weaver model. It can be used to apply in ordinary face-to-face communication as much as in distanced communication. It means interference: something, or some things, which get in the way of the clarity of the message. It can be physical noise, for example a crackle on the line. It is distraction. Shannon and Weaver in their analysis of the model identify three levels of noise, as relevant to our studies today as when the model was created. At Level A we experience technical noise. Interestingly, Shannon and Weaver estimated that even if 40 per cent of a telephone conversation were impeded by technical noise, we would still get the gist of the exchange. The authors explain this by noting the redundancy built into the language we use. This refers to such features of our exchanges as repetition, the use of familiar phrases, the inclusion of expressions not absolutely essential to the central message. Redundancy, we realize, is anything but redundant. Pauses, hums and ‘aahs’ help towards the clarification of messages. On the telephone, they tell the person on the other end of the line that you are listening, paying attention. In face-to-face communication nods, head shakes and other facial and bodily gestures may not be essential to the core of the exchange; but see what happens when they are absent. If we find ourselves in conversation with someone whose face remains mute, the ‘poker face’, it is not long before we begin to feel uncomfortable. There is no confirmation. Level B of Shannon and Weaver’s categorization, semantic noise, occurs when messages are misunderstood, misinterpreted or misconstrued, and arise out of the language being used by one or more of the participants in the communication process. To declare, ‘I can’t understand a word he/she says’ does not mean that literally there is not a single comprehensible word (unless, of course, we are hearing a foreign language we’re unfamiliar with). It means we are having difficulty with the ‘how’ of explanation. One lunchtime on BBC Radio 4 there was a programme on comedians from the North-East, Newcastle in particular. Though I’d worked for a period in the region, I still found that the accents of the comedians, and the speed at which they delivered their lines, left me nonplussed. Accent, then, proved a noise barrier: whether the problem was semantic or not it was impossible to tell. The sound of the laughter of the audience proved that what is noise for some is quite the opposite for others. Perhaps really in this case we are talking about Shannon and Weaver’s Level C, the effectiveness of the communication as far as the receiver is concerned. The North-East comedians were, within their immediate context of live audiences, effective. Widen the context, continue with the same mode
of communication rather than adjusting it to new patterns of reception, and the communication hits noise. It was because of this that the comedians were seen to have been locally popular, but fell short of engaging wider audiences.
Lines give way to circles
Shannon and Weaver make little play with the notion and value of feed- back. The shortcoming was rectified in later models, and the shape of those models acknowledged feedback as an essential ingredient for successful communication, hence the advent of the circular in preference to linear model. Certainly as far as interpersonal communication is concerned, circu- larity rather than the linear is more apt as a descriptor of the process. True, we often go round in circles, but no circle is ever quite the same, for each movement of communication modifies the last. The circular model also suggests that rather than a simple exercise in transmission, the commu- nicative process is one of transaction – of assessment, analysis, scrutiny; most of all, of interpretation. You say something to me: I interpret it, not only taking note of your words but your non-verbal activity. I respond and you take note of the nature of that response. This is nicely illustrated by Osgood and Schramm’s model (see Figure 1.2). Not only is there a degree of circularity between the communicators as messages pass to and fro, there is transaction going on within each communicator; a process of internalization, of working out.
The circularity of the exchange also suggests that while some sort of signal initiates an act of communication, it never really ends. A comment – a compliment, a harsh word, a generous or unfair judgment, a piece of advice made years ago, may still resonate in our minds; may still cause us a warm glow or bother us, serving to condition our response to the present. As for
Message Decoder Interpreter Encoder
Encoder Interpreter Decoder Message
Figure 1.2 Model 2: Osgood and Schramm (1956, originated by Osgood and cited by Schramm 1954)
In A First Look at Communication, Em Griffin (2003) lends support to the importance of fields of experience, writing that ‘Communication between us begins when there is some shared overlap between two images, and it is effective to the extent that overlap increases’. The potential for matching or mismatching is neatly illustrated in the SMCR model proposed by David K. Berlo (1960), who studied with Schramm at the University of Illinois (see Figure 1.4) 1. Here Berlo identifies a number of factors involved in the process of communication between two or more persons. Both source and receiver are prompted and conditioned by their skills, attitudes and knowledge; and their interactivity is influenced by the social and cultural contexts in which communication takes place. The means of communication – the channel – is in turn governed by the senses, obviously by seeing and hearing, but also by touch, smell and even taste. Berlo prises open the ‘Message’ impressively into elements and struc- ture. We have content and that content has to opt for an appropriate means of expression involving the use of a code or language. The suggestion here is that while the model, as it were the starting point, is clear, comprehensive and comprehensible, the actual process of communication once it kicks in, is complicated. Indeed Berlo’s model seems to imply that with such complexity all sorts of things could go wrong. The linguist Roman Jakobson also seeks to identify the vital ingredients of the communication process. He posed a model suggesting a ‘fit’ between the elements of communication and its functions or purposes (see Figure 1.5). ‘Addresser’ and ‘addressee’ tend, like ‘source’ and ‘receiver’, to be rather clumsy terms, especially now that we have moved away from linear models of transmission. But once we see the functions imposed on the structure of parts, we realize that here is a model that can be usefully applied to real situations.
Figure 1.4 Model 4: Berlo (1960)
The context serves a referential function: it delineates the communicative situation. It becomes imperative to ask, in terms of simple location, is the interaction taking place on the street, in the home, at the pub; and what is the nature of the exchange? To employ a tired cliche´, we might say, ‘I think we have a situation’, meaning there’s a problem, possibly a crisis. Our understanding of this situation, as either participants or observers, depends on how we ‘read’ that situation, how much information we have about it, how familiar we are with the context of the interaction; otherwise we might seriously ‘get the wrong end of the stick’. According to Jakobson, the dynamic that occurs between the addresser and addressee serves emotive, poetic, conative and metalingual functions. Communicator A emotes, expresses, formulating a message that has been put together using a linguistic code; Communicator B connotes, that is receives and interprets both the message and the way it has been delivered. Contact has made the exchange possible, fulfilling what Jakobson refers to as a phatic function, the purpose of which is to open the channel of communication – or as it has picturesquely been put, to oil the wheels of communication.
The ritual dimension of communication
Phatic salutations comprise everyday greeting and exchanges, for example ‘Hello!’, ‘Have a nice day!’ or ‘What terrible weather!’ We realize their importance by their absence, when there is no response to a cheery ‘Hello!’, a look of indifference in response to a smile. Here we encounter the connative function, the nature of the addressee’s response. If Communicator A wishes to ask a favour of Communicator B, phatic
CONSTITUTIVE FACTORS:
FUNCTIONS:
Addresser
Emotive (Expressive)
Addressee
Conative (Effective of message on Addressee)
Context Message Contact Code
Referential (Reality orientation of message) Poetic Phatic
Metalingual
Figure 1.5 Model 5: Jakobson (1958)
can be another person – a friend, a relative, a colleague – or a range of external factors such as attitudes, points of view, issues or events. What is significant is the orientation of A and B to each other with regard to X. Let us take an example of like-dislike. A and B like each another. They agree on X, whatever X is, say a third person. They are, in Newcomb’s judgment, in consonance; that is they feel at one. There is confirmation. Or let us take the issue of racism as the X-factor. A and B like one another and share a strong antipathy to racism: outcome – consonance. Things get complicated, however, when A and B like one another, but discover their opinions about racism markedly differ. The outcome now is likely to be dissonance; that is A and B find themselves at odds on a deeply- felt matter. They experience unease, emotional discomfort. The stronger the disparity of views on X, the more powerful, goes the theory, the feelings of dissonance. In contrast, if A dislikes B and discovers they disagree on X, what have we got? Well, here, expectations come in to play. If you dislike a person, the probability is that you will disagree on matters of importance, say on values and behaviour. You may say to yourself, ‘That’s just what you’d expect from B’. Yet if A, disliking B, discovers they agree on X, what then? According to the theory of consonance/dissonance a feeling of dis- sonance is likely: person A has encountered the unexpected and will perhaps wonder, ‘Have I been wrong about B?’ In situations of dissonance, Newcomb argues, there is a ‘strain towards symmetry’, towards balance. Measures may be taken to restore a sense of equilibrium. In the case of A liking B but dis- agreeing on X, the participants may simply decide not to discuss X; or there may be a degree of compromise on one side or the other, or both in regard to X. In the case of A disliking B but agreeing on X, the participants, one or both, may reassess their attitude to the other. Much depends on the strength of feeling A and B have for each other, and how central to their belief system is the X-issue – how much the participants actually identify with X. If X symbolizes what a person stands for, if it is a keynote of a person’s value system, it could injure relationships and put distance between them. Newcomb’s model is symmetrical. Consonance keeps it that way; dis- sonance threatens to pull it out of shape. It could be argued, of course, that in the real as contrasted with the theoretical world, conflict is more in evidence than blissful resolution. We should not be surprised about this, or dis- appointed. 2 As C. David Mortensen says in Miscommunication (Mortensen and Ayres 1997), ‘Because conflict and confusion are intrinsic features of everyday life, there is no use longing for friction-free conditions’.
Reality, perception and the project of self
Mentioning the ‘real’ world should remind us that we are actually referring to, acting upon and reacting to our perceptions of the real world. Reality may be what we are looking at but perception is what we see; not to mention that our perceptions of reality interact with and sometimes clash with the perceptions of others. George Gerbner’s model of 1956 (see Figure 1.7), exploring the rela- tionship between media messaging and individual reception, emphasizes the difference between event (E) and perception of that event (E1) by the com- municator (M), leading to a representation of it in one communicative form or another, and in turn perceived by the recipient of the communication (M2). What happens, whether perceived by a media communicator or by an individual is that perception of that event becomes, in Gerbner’s term, a percept: and it is this which, in the process of communication, as it were, ‘does the talking’. Form and content transmit the percept according to criteria of selection, context and availability (of information, for example). Gerbner highlights the complexity of process, for we can never have a foolproof perception of reality because we cannot know everything about that reality or have a fault-free grasp of context, especially as the communicative
access to channelsmedia control M
M
selection context availability
selection context availability
E
event
S E
form content
SE 1 percept of statement about event
E 1 percept (^) means and contol (or communicating) dimension
perceptual dimension
Figure 1.7 Model 7: Gerbner (1956)
that message can be conveyed. We might even decide to say nothing, leaving what we have to say to a look, a smile or a gesture. What we cannot be sure about till it happens is whether there will be a response, and what form this response will take. In whatever way our communication ‘comes over’ the receiver will ‘hear’ and by hearing (that is, paying attention rather than ignoring the receiver’s message) will ‘reconstruct’ the message. This may prove a fair and true reading or a reading varyingly coloured by doubt, uncertainty, prejudice or just plain misunderstanding. Yet whatever the nature of that reconstruction, a process of evaluation takes place prior to response. It might be said that communication resembles that corny (and with global warming, fast-melting) old metaphor, the iceberg: what appears above the water is the act of communication; below it is the process of ‘weighing up’ as a prelude to transmission. Once transmission takes place the response is in turn the product of what goes on below the water line. All the while, self-evaluation is going on, the source interacting ‘with his
Figure 1.8 Model 8: Andersch, Staats and Bostrom (1969)
own values, opinions and ideas; in other words, he evaluates his continuing message’. This is a critically important factor for, as Andersch et al. assert, ‘it is almost impossible for sources to ignore their own values in any circum- stances’. The receiver passes through a matching process except that it is the speaker’s message, rather than the environment, which is the receiver’s pri- mary stimulus.
From circle to spiral
The Andersch, Staats and Bostrom model is probably the most aesthetically pleasing of all models and the most elegant of circular formats; but could there be a shape better able to represent the more open, the more extempore nature of communication? Another American theorist, Frank Dance, con- sidered there was and he proposed a spiral design as better reflecting the process of communication (see Figure 1.9). In ‘A helical model of commu- nication’, a chapter published in Foundations of Communication Theory, edited by Kenneth K. Sereno and C. David Mortensen (1970) 3 , Dance first gives credit to the circular model: ‘The circular-communication image does an excellent job of making the point that what and how one communicates has an affect that may alter future communication.’ However, Dance goes on,
Figure 1.9 Model 9: Dance’s helical spiral as a representation of human communication (1967)
self-talk. Ultimately it is the source of communication. We could convin- cingly elaborate on Dance, by designing a double spiral that connects the inner and outer world. As participants in the spiral process we can only guess at what is going on intrapersonally in the heads and hearts of those with whom we communicate. Indeed it might be said that we are not always certain what is going on in our own heads and hearts. What we do know is that the outside world has a profound influence on our thinking and feeling while our inner world pro- foundly influences our ‘public performance’.
Two models from the 1960s seek to address this situation. Samuel Beck- er’s mosaic or cuboid model (see Figure 1.10) attempts to portray the multi- dimensional nature of communication, its inner and outer features, and the fact that the inner features run to considerable depths, some of them held back from, or hidden from, public view. Information, experience, aspects of self-view, perceptions of life and the world are like the tiny cubes of marble or ceramic that make up a mosaic.
Figure 1.10 Model 10: Becker (1968)
These, singly or in association with other ‘bits’, influence the shape and tenor of the communicative process, prompting, selecting, shaping, censoring. A darkened bit in the Becker model might be a bad experience from the past, a disappointment, an act of cruelty to which we have been subjected. It is hidden from discourse but it influences it, just as it might influence behaviour. Our communication may be perceived as being defensive, using tactics of closure, to ward off too much attention; of resistance to another person getting close or understanding more than you wish to be understood. Concealment, therefore, is as much a part of the process as opening up – a scenario made usefully manifest in the Johari Window (see Figure 1.11). This model, like Becker’s, suggests an assembly of often competing and over- lapping parts, zones or areas. It is not illustrating a sequence or suggesting a chain of events; rather it identifies crucial features of interpersonal commu- nication that may serve to make for better, or worse, communication. It is really a model about awareness of self and other, suggesting the need for mutuality. Communication, this model nudges us into concluding, is essentially reciprocal.
The name of the model derives from one created by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram, hence ‘Jo-hari’, in Of Human Interaction (Luft 1969). There are things we know about ourselves and others know about us (Free Area); there are things we may be blind to in ourselves, but not to others (Blind Area); there are things we keep to ourselves, of which others are unaware (Hidden Area) and there are things about ourselves that neither we nor others are aware of but which may influence our communication with others (Unknown Area).
Free Area
Blind Area
Hidden Area
Unknown Area
Things I know
Things they know
Things they don’t know
Things I don’t know
Solicits feedback
Discloses or gives feedback
Figure 1.11 Model 11: Johari window (Luft 1969)
appointment. As he gazes around the room, Mr A decodes (D) ‘or assigns meaning to the various cues available to his perceptual field.. .’ He transforms these (encodes them) ‘so that they are manifest to others in the form of verbal and nonverbal cues... The spiral line connecting encoding and decoding processes is used to give diagrammatic representation to the ‘continuous, unrepeatable and irreversible nature of communication.. .’ Barnlund differentiates between three different kinds of sign or cue – public, private and behavioural. Public cues he subdivides into two, natural and artificial. Natural cues come from our environment without human intervention. Artificial clues arise from a human’s involvement with the outer world, their impact on it, their modification and manipulation of it. Public cues are ‘part of, or available to, the perceptual field of all potential com- municants’ and have been ‘created prior to the event under analysis’ as well as remaining ‘outside the control of the persons under observation’. Private cues operate intrapersonally, in our own head, part of the lex- icon of memory and experience; ‘elements or events that are essentially pri- vate in nature, that come from sources not automatically available to any other person who enters a communicative field’. If, when private cues are translated into Behavioural Cues, speech and non-verbal activity, the decoder of the message (P2, for example) fails to read the cues effectively, the resultant exchange could lead to misperception, confusion and end in defensive communication.
Figure 1.12 Model 12: Barnlund’s transactional model (A) (1970)
It may cause dissonance resulting from an inaccurate assessment by P2 of P1; a judgment assembled on too little evidence – too few cues, or indicators, to meaning. Barnlund refers to a process of transferability, of public cues becoming private ones, and vice-versa. In other words communication is typified by transactions, one set of cues working on other sets, modifying them and being modified by them. The inner world and the outer world are in a constant process of working on each other. The use of jagged lines in both models illustrates how ‘the number of cues to which meaning may be assigned is probably without limit’. Some cues will carry more meaning, more worth, than others. Barnlund speaks of valences, positive, negative or neutral, indicated in the models with (+), () or (o). The author echoes Newcomb’s notion of consonance-seeking:
Unless other factors intervene, individuals tend to draw towards cues to which positive valences can be assigned, that is towards cues capable of reinforcing past or emerging interpretations, and away
Figure 1.13 Model 13: Barnlund’s transactional model (B) (1970)
