Process of Communication | Concept
The word communication is drawn from the Latin word communis, which means communication. Communication is, therefore, a dynamic process of action and interaction through the sharing or exchange of ideas, information, knowledge, attitudes, or feelings among two or more persons through certain signs and symbols toward a desired goal in order to achieve commonality.
In This Article
As a social process, communication tends to satisfy our physical, emotional, or other needs to get work done. In this entire process, there are some obvious questions like:
Who is involved? – A sender and reciever
What is being shared ? – A message.
Through what means? – A channel.
It is obvious that communication is an integral part of one’s life. It is universal to all human beings, and society cannot survive in the absence of communication.
Process of Communication | Nature
Communication is a dynamic process. That means the process has no beginning, end, or fixed sequence of events. Also, one can’t freeze communication at any point. A message from one individual creates a continuous response message. In this context, communication is also said to be an ongoing, ever-changing, and continuous act.
Communication takes place by many means and at many levels for many reasons, with many people in many ways. For instance, certain structures are closely associated with ways of communication. Like,
- Writing with an authority structure
- Telephone communications with task structure
- Face-to-face communication with proximity structure
Communication involves interdependence, which means reciprocal and mutual dependence. However, the level of interdependence may vary from situation to situation. Communication is usually a response amongst organisms, and hence, it is both reciprocal and alternating.
The communication process is comprised of several distinguished parts. Even in its simplest form, it involves at least three phases:
- Expression
- Interpretation
- Response
Communication takes place at many levels. These are:
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal
- Organizational
- Inter-organisational etc.
Communication effectiveness varies from one situation to another. Communication can occur even without words. Our four senses—eyes (visual), eat (audio), nose (smell), and skin (touch)—communicate. So, when a message is created from a source and produces a specific mental or physical response to a receiver, communication occurs.
Communication is a complex process involving six individuals, three at the sender’s end and three at the receiver’s end.
| Sender’s End | Receiver’s End |
| One thinks’ what should Be Communicated | One receives’ what was said by the speaker |
| One ‘communicates’ | One thinks’ whatever he had received |
| One thinks about what the listener would think about what he had just said. | One thinks about what the speaker would be thinking in his response. |
The Concept of Process
The process is any phenomenon that shows a continuous change in time. If we accept the process concept, we view events and relationships as dynamic, ongoing, ever-changing, and continuous. Anything that falls under the process has no beginning, an end, or a fixed sequence of events. It is not static; it is moving. The ingredients within a process interact and affect each other.
Communication theory reflects a process point of view. One cannot talk about the beginning or end of the communication or say that a particular idea came from one specific source. However, this is not to say that we can place no order on events.
When we talk about communication, we face at least two problems. First, we must arrest the dynamic of the process, like taking a picture that represents the event and not the actual event.
The second problem occurs in describing a process, which derives from the necessity for the use of language. When using language to describe a process, we must choose specific words and put them in logical order. However, all languages go from front to back, left to right, top to bottom, and beginning to end—the process we are describing may not have a left and right, a top and a bottom, a beginning and an end.
We have no alternatives if we are to analyze and communicate about a process. The important point is that we must remember that we are not including everything in our discussion. The things we talk about do not have to exist in precisely the ways we talk about them, and they certainly do not have to operate in the order in which we talk about them. Objects that we separate may not always be separable, and they never operate independently; each affects and interacts with the others.
So, it is important to understand that the ingredients of a process can be listed easily, although they are necessary and not sufficient to deal with the concept and dynamics of the process.
In fact it is the blending and the dynamic interrelationships among the ingredients which are associated and developed in the process that determines the actual process.
e.g., Consider a theatre. Its ingredients are :
a playwright, a play, a director, an actor, stagehands, audiences, scenery, lighting, an auditorium.
When we put all this together and the ingredients have been used, the audience has received a play. We can say this, but it is not a theatre. Again, the theatre is the blending and dynamic interrelationships among all the ingredients that are associated with and developed in the process of playing a play.
The dynamic of theatre is in part related to whether the audience enjoys the play or dislikes it. However, in any case, it is important to remember that our discussion about a process
should not be in a forced order. We cannot list all the ingredients and not talk adequately about how they affect each other. We can provide some suggestions and some hints about both the ingredients and the dynamic of the process.
