Models of the Communication Process

Abstract
We teach the same models of communication today that we taught forty
years ago. This can and should be regarded as a mark of the enduring value
of these models in highlighting key elements of that process for students who
are taking the process apart for the first time. It remains, however, that the
field of communication has evolved considerably since the 1960's, and it may
be appropriate to update our models to account for that evolution. This paper
presents the classic communication models that are taught in introducing
students to interpersonal communication and mass communication, including
Shannon's information theory model (the active model), a cybernetic model
that includes feedback (the interactive model, an intermediary model
(sometimes referred to as a gatekeeper model of the two-step flow), and the
transactive model. It then introduces a new ecological model of
communication that, it is hoped, more closely maps to the the range of
materials we teach and research in the field of communication today. This
model attempts to capture the fundamental interaction of language, medium,
and message that enables communication, the socially constructed aspects
of each element, and the relationship of creators and consumers of messages
both to these elements and each other.
Introduction
While the field of communication has changed considerably over the last
thirty years, the models used in the introductory chapters of communication
textbooks (see Adler, 1991; Adler, Rosenfeld, and Towne, 1996; Barker and
Barker, 1993; Becker and Roberts, 1992; Bittner, 1996; Burgoon, Hunsaker,
and Dawson, 1994; DeFleur, Kearney, and Plax, 1993; DeVito, 1994; Gibson
and Hanna, 1992; Wood, 2002) are the same models that were used forty
years ago. This is, in some sense, a testament to their enduring value.
Shannon's (1948) model of the communication process (Figure 1) provides, in
its breakdown of the flow of a message from source to destination, an
excellent breakdown of the elements of the communication process that can
be very helpful to students who are thinking about how they communicate
with others. It remains, however, that these texts generally treat these
models as little more than a baseline. They rapidly segue into other subjects
that seem more directly relevant to our everyday experience of
communication. In interpersonal communication texts these subjects typically
include the social construction of the self, perception of self and other,
language, nonverbal communication, listening, conflict management,
intercultural communication, relational communication, and various
communication contexts, including work and family. In mass communication
texts these subjects typically include media literacy, media and culture, new
media, media industries, media audiences, advertising, public relations,
media effects, regulation, and media ethics.
There was a time when our communication models provided a useful
graphical outline of a semesters material. This is no longer the case. This

paper presents the classic models that we use in teaching communication,

including Shannon's information theory model (the active model), a
cybernetic model that includes feedback (the interactive model, an
intermediary model (sometimes referred to as a gatekeeper model of the
two-step flow), and the transactive model. Few textbooks cover all of these
models together. Mass Communication texts typically segue from Shannon's
model to a two-step flow or gatekeeper model. Interpersonal texts typically
present Shannon's model as the "active" model of the communication
process and then elaborate it with interactive (cybernetic) and transactive
models. Here we will argue the value of update these models to better
account for the way we teach these diverse subject matters, and present a
unifying model of the communication process that will be described as an
ecological model of the communication process. This model seeks to better
represent the structure and key constituents of the communication process
as we teach it today.
Shannon's Model of the Communication Process
Shannon's (1948) model of the communication process is, in important ways,
the beginning of the modern field. It provided, for the first time, a general
model of the communication process that could be treated as the common
ground of such diverse disciplines as journalism, rhetoric, linguistics, and
speech and hearing sciences. Part of its success is due to its structuralist
reduction of communication to a set of basic constituents that not only
explain how communication happens, but why communication sometimes
fails. Good timing played a role as well. The world was barely thirty years into
the age of mass radio, had arguably fought a world war in its wake, and an
even more powerful, television, was about to assert itself. It was time to
create the field of communication as a unified discipline, and Shannon's
model was as good an excuse as any. The model's enduring value is readily
evident in introductory textbooks. It remains one of the first things most
students learn about communication when they take an introductory
communication class. Indeed, it is one of only a handful of theoretical
statements about the communication process that can be found in
introductory textbooks in both mass communication and interpersonal
communication.

Figure 1: Shannon's (1948) Model of the communication

process.

Shannon's model, as shown in Figure 1, breaks the process of communication

down into eight discrete components:
1. An information source. Presumably a person who creates a message.
2. The message, which is both sent by the information source and
received by the destination.
3. A transmitter. For Shannon's immediate purpose a telephone
instrument that captures an audio signal, converts it into an electronic
signal, and amplifies it for transmission through the telephone network.
Transmission is readily generalized within Shannon's information
theory to encompass a wide range of transmitters. The simplest
transmission system, that associated with face-to-face communication,
has at least two layers of transmission. The first, the mouth (sound)
and body (gesture), create and modulate a signal. The second layer,
which might also be described as a channel, is built of the air (sound)
and light (gesture) that enable the transmission of those signals from
one person to another. A television broadcast would obviously include
many more layers, with the addition of cameras and microphones,
editing and filtering systems, a national signal distribution network
(often satellite), and a local radio wave broadcast antenna.
4. The signal, which flows through a channel. There may be multiple
parallel signals, as is the case in face-to-face interaction where sound
and gesture involve different signal systems that depend on different
channels and modes of transmission. There may be multiple serial
signals, with sound and/or gesture turned into electronic signals, radio
waves, or words and pictures in a book.
5. A carrier or channel, which is represented by the small unlabeled box
in the middle of the model. The most commonly used channels include
air, light, electricity, radio waves, paper, and postal systems. Note that
there may be multiple channels associated with the multiple layers of
transmission, as described above.
6. Noise, in the form of secondary signals that obscure or confuse the
signal carried. Given Shannon's focus on telephone transmission,
carriers, and reception, it should not be surprising that noise is
restricted to noise that obscures or obliterates some portion of the
signal within the channel. This is a fairly restrictive notion of noise, by
current standards, and a somewhat misleading one. Today we have at
least some media which are so noise free that compressed signals are
constructed with an absolutely minimal amount information and little
likelihood of signal loss. In the process, Shannon's solution to noise,
redundancy, has been largely replaced by a minimally redundant
solution: error detection and correction. Today we use noise more as a
metaphor for problems associated with effective listening.
7. A receiver. In Shannon's conception, the receiving telephone
instrument. In face to face communication a set of ears (sound) and
eyes (gesture). In television, several layers of receiver, including an
antenna and a television set.
8. A destination. Presumably a person who consumes and processes the
message.

Like all models, this is a minimalist abstraction of the reality it attempts to

reproduce. The reality of most communication systems is more complex. Most
information sources (and destinations) act as both sources and destinations.
Transmitters, receivers, channels, signals, and even messages are often
layered both serially and in parallel such that there are multiple signals
transmitted and received, even when they are converged into a common
signal stream and a common channel. Many other elaborations can be readily
described.. It remains, however, that Shannon's model is a useful abstraction
that identifies the most important components of communication and their
general relationship to one another. That value is evident in its similarity to
real world pictures of the designs of new communication systems, including
Bell's original sketches of the telephone, as seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Bell's drawing of the workings of a telephone, from his original

sketches (source: Bell Family Papers; Library of Congress;
Bell's sketch visibly contains an information source and destination,
transmitters and receivers, a channel, a signal, and an implied message (the
information source is talking). What is new, in Shannon's model (aside from
the concept of noise, which is only partially reproduced by Bell's batteries), is
a formal vocabulary that is now generally used in describing such designs, a
vocabulary that sets up both Shannon's mathematical theory of information
and a large amount of subsequent communication theory. This
correspondence between Bell's sketch and Shannon's model is rarely
remarked (see Hopper, 1992 for one instance).
Shannon's model isn't really a model of communication, however. It is,
instead, a model of the flow of information through a medium, and an
incomplete and biased model that is far more applicable to the system it
maps, a telephone or telegraph, than it is to most other media. It suggests,
for instance, a "push" model in which sources of information can inflict it on
destinations. In the real world of media, destinations are more typically selfselecting "consumers" of information who have the ability to select the
messages they are most interested in, turn off messages that don't interest

them, focus on one message in preference to other in message rich

environments, and can choose to simply not pay attention. Shannon's model
depicts transmission from a transmitter to a receiver as the primary activity
of a medium. In the real world of media, messages are frequently stored for
elongated periods of time and/or modified in some way before they are
accessed by the "destination". The model suggests that communication
within a medium is frequently direct and unidirectional, but in the real world
of media, communication is almost never unidirectional and is often indirect.
Derivative Models of the Communication Process
One of these shortcomings is addressed in Figure 2's intermediary model of
communication (sometimes referred to as the gatekeeper model or two-step
flow (Katz, 1957)). This model, which is frequently depicted in introductory
texts in mass communication, focuses on the important role that
intermediaries often play in the communication process. Mass communication
texts frequently specifically associate editors, who decide what stories will fit
in a newspaper or news broadcast, with this intermediary or gatekeeper role.
There are, however, many intermediary roles (Foulger, 2002a) associated
with communication. Many of these intermediaries have the ability to decide
what messages others see, the context in which they are seen, and when
they see them. They often have the ability, moreover, to change messages or
to prevent them from reaching an audience (destination). In extreme
variations we refer to such gatekeepers as censors. Under the more normal
conditions of mass media, in which publications choose some content in
preference to other potential content based on an editorial policy, we refer to
them as editors (most mass media), moderators (Internet discussion groups),
reviewers (peer-reviewed publications), or aggregators (clipping services),
among other titles . Delivery workers (a postal delivery worker, for instance)
also act as intermediaries, and have the ability to act as gatekeepers, but are
generally restricted from doing so as a matter of ethics and/or law.

Figure 3: An Intermediary Model.

Variations of Figure 3's gatekeeper model are also used in teaching
organizational communication, where gatekeepers, in the form of bridges and
liaisons, have some ability to shape the organization through their selective
sharing of information. These variations are generally more complex in
depiction and often take the form of social network diagrams that depict the
interaction relationships of dozens of people. They network diagrams often
presume, or at least allow, bi-directional arrows such that they are more
consistent with the notion that communication is most often bidirectional.

The bidirectionality of communication is commonly addressed in

interpersonal communication text with two elaborations of Shannon's model
(which is often labeled as the action model of communication): the interactive
model and the transactive model. The interactive model, a variant of which is
shown in Figure 4, elaborates Shannon's model with the cybernetic concept of
feedback (Weiner, 1948, 1986), often (as is the case in Figure 4) without
changing any other element of Shannon's model. The key concept associated
with this elaboration is that destinations provide feedback on the messages
they receive such that the information sources can adapt their messages, in
real time. This is an important elaboration, and as generally depicted, a
radically oversimplified one. Feedback is a message (or a set of messages).
The source of feedback is an information source. The consumer of feedback is
a destination. Feedback is transmitted, received, and potentially disruptable
via noise sources. None of this is visible in the typical depiction of the
interactive model. This doesn't diminish the importance of feedback or the
usefulness of elaborating Shannon's model to include it. People really do
adapt their messages based on the feedback they receive. It is useful,
however, to notice that the interactive model depicts feedback at a much
higher level of abstraction than it does messages.

Figure 4: An Interactive Model:

This difference in the level of abstraction is addressed in the transactional
model of communication, a variant of which is shown in Figure 5. This model
acknowledges neither creators nor consumers of messages, preferring to
label the people associated with the model as communicators who both
create and consume messages. The model presumes additional symmetries
as well, with each participant creating messages that are received by the
other communicator. This is, in many ways, an excellent model of the face-toface interactive process which extends readily to any interactive medium that
provides users with symmetrical interfaces for creation and consumption of
messages, including notes, letters, C.B. Radio, electronic mail, and the radio.
It is, however, a distinctly interpersonal model that implies an equality
between communicators that often doesn't exist, even in interpersonal
contexts. The caller in most telephone conversations has the initial upper

hand in setting the direction and tone of a a telephone callr than the receiver
of the call (Hopper, 1992).In face-to-face head-complement interactions, the
boss (head) has considerably more freedom (in terms of message choice,
media choice, ability to frame meaning, ability to set the rules of interaction)
and power to allocate message bandwidth than does the employee
(complement). The model certainly does not apply in mass media contexts.

Figure 5: A Transactional Model:

The "masspersonal" (xxxxx, 199x) media of the Internet through this implied
symmetry into even greater relief. Most Internet media grant everyone
symmetrical creation and consumption interfaces. Anyone with Internet
access can create a web site and participate as an equal partner in e-mail,
instant messaging, chat rooms, computer conferences, collaborative
composition sites, blogs, interactive games, MUDs, MOOs, and other media. It
remains, however, that users have very different preferences in their
message consumption and creation. Some people are very comfortable
creating messages for others online. Others prefer to "lurk"; to freely browse
the messages of others without adding anything of their own. Adding
comments to a computer conference is rarely more difficult than sending an
e-mail, but most Internet discussion groups have many more lurkers
(consumers of messages that never post) than they have contributors
(people who both create and consume messages). Oddly, the lurkers
sometimes feel more integrated with the community than the contributors do
(Baym, 2000).
A New Model of the Communication Process
Existing models of the communication process don't provide a reasonable
basis for understanding such effects. Indeed, there are many things that we
routinely teach undergraduates in introductory communication courses that
are missing from, or outright inconsistent with, these models. Consider that:

we now routinely teach students that "receivers" of messages really

"consume" messages. People usually have a rich menu of potential
messages to choose from and they select the messages they want to
hear in much the same way that diners select entrees from a
restaurant menu. We teach students that most "noise" is generated
within the listener, that we engage messages through "selective
attention", that one of the most important things we can do to improve
our communication is to learn how to listen, that mass media
audiences have choices, and that we need to be "literate" in our media
choices, even in (and perhaps especially in) our choice of television
messages. Yet all of these models suggest an "injection model" in
which message reception is automatic.
we spend a large portion of our introductory courses teaching students
about language, including written, verbal, and non-verbal languages,
yet language is all but ignored in these models (the use of the term in
Figure 5 is not the usual practice in depictions of the transactive
model).
we spend large portions of our introductory courses teaching students
about the importance of perception, attribution, and relationships to
our interpretation of messages; of the importance of communication to
the perceptions that others have of us, the perceptions we have of
ourselves, and the creation and maintenence of the relationships we
have with others. These models say nothing about the role of
perception and relationshp to the way we interpret messages or our
willingness to consume messages from different people.
we spend large portions of our introductory courses teaching students
about the socially constructed aspects of languages, messages, and
media use. Intercultural communication presumes both social
construction and the presumption that people schooled in one set of
conventions will almost certainly violate the expectations of people
schooled in a different set of expectations. Discussions of the effects of
media on culture presume that communication within the same
medium may be very different in different cultures, but that the effects
of the medium on various cultures will be more uniform. Existing
general models provide little in the way of a platform from which these
effects can be discussed.
when we use these models in teaching courses in both interpersonal
and mass communication; in teaching students about very different
kinds of media. With the exception of the Shannon model, we tend to
use these models selectively in describing those media, and without
any strong indication of where the medium begins or ends; without any
indication of how media interrelate with languages, messages, or the
people who create and consume messages.without addressing the
ways in which they are . while these media describe, in a generalized
way, media,

The ecological model of communication,

provide a platform on which these issues
communication occurs in the intersection
communication between people (creators

shown in Figure 6, attempts to

can be explored. It asserts that
of four fundamental constructs:
and consumers) is mediated by

messages which are created using language within media; consumed from
media and interpreted using language.This model is, in many ways, a more
detailed elaboration of Lasswell's (1948) classic outline of the study of
communication: "Who ... says what ... in which channel ... to whom ... with
what effect". In the ecological model , the "who" are the creators of
messages, the "says what" are the messages, the "in which channel" is
elaborated into languages (which are the content of channels) and media
(which channels are a component of), the "to whom" are the consumers of
messages, and the effects are found in various relationships between the
primitives, including relationships, perspectives, attributions, interpretations,
and the continuing evolution of languages and media.

Figure 6: A Ecological Model of the Communication Process

A number of relationships are described in this model:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Messages are created and consumed using language

Language occurs within the context of media
Messages are constructed and consumed within the context of media
The roles of consumer and creator are reflexive. People become
creators when they reply or supply feedback to other people. Creators
become consumers when they make use of feedback to adapt their
messages to message consumers. People learn how to create
messages through the act of consuming other peoples messages.
5. The roles of consumer and creator are introspective. Creators of
messages create messages within the context of their perspectives of
and relationships with anticipated consumers of messages. Creators
optimize their messages to their target audiences. Consumers of
messages interpret those messages within the context of their
perspectives of, and relationships with, creators of messages.
Consumers make attributions of meaning based on their opinion of the

message creator. People form these perspectives and relationships as

a function of their communication.
6. The messages creators of messages construct are necessarily
imperfect representations of the meaning they imagine. Messages are
created within the expressive limitations of the medium selected and
the meaning representation space provided by the language used. The
message created is almost always a partial and imperfect
representation of what the creator would like to say.
7. A consumers interpretation of a messages necessarily attributes
meaning imperfectly. Consumers intepret messages within the limits of
the languages used and the media those languages are used in. A
consumers interpretation of a message may be very different than
what the creator of a message imagined.
8. People learn language by through the experience of encountering
language being used within media. The languages they learn will
almost always be the languages when communicating with people who
already know and use those languages. That communication always
occurs within a medium that enables those languages.
9. People learn media by using media. The media they learn will
necessarilly be the media used by the people they communicate with.
10.People invent and evolve languages. While some behavior expressions
(a baby's cry) occur naturally and some aspects of language structure
may mirror the ways in which the brain structures ideas, language
does not occur naturally. People invent new language when there is no
language that they can be socialized into. People evolve language
when they need to communicate ideas that existing language is not
sufficient to.
11.People invent and evolve media While some of the modalities and
channels associated with communication are naturally occurring, the
media we use to communicate are not.
A medium of communication is, in short, the product of a set of complex
interactions between its primary consituents: messages, people (acting as
creators of messages, consumers of messages, and in other roles),
languages, and media. Three of these consituents are themselves complex
systems and the subject of entire fields of study, including psychology,
sociology, anthropology (all three of which study people), linguistics
(language), media ecology (media), and communication (messages,
language, and media). Even messages can be regarded as complex entities,
but its complexities can be described entirely within the scope of languages,
media, and the people who use them. This ecological model of
communication is, in its most fundamental reading, a compact theory of
messages and the systems that enable them. Messages are the central
feature of the model and the most fundamental product of the interaction of
people, language, and media. But there are other products of the model that
build up from that base of messages, including (in a rough ordering to
increased complexity) observation, learning, interpretation, socialization,
attribution, perspectives, and relationships.

Discussion: Positioning
communication

the

study

of

media

in

the

field

of

It is in this layering of interdependent social construction that this model

picks up its name. Our communication is not produced within any single
system, but in the intersection of several interrelated systems, each of which
is self-standing necessarily described by dedicated theories, but each of
which is both the product of the others and, in its own limited way, an
instance of the other. The medium is, as McLuhan famously observed, a
message that is inherent to every message that is created in or consumed
from a medium. The medium is, to the extent that we can select among
media, also a language such that the message of the medium is not only
inherent to a message, but often an element of its composition. In what may
be the most extreme view enabled by the processing of messages within
media, the medium may also be a person and consumes messages, recreates
them, and makes the modified messages available for further consumption. A
medium is really none of these things. It is fundamentally a system that
enables the construction of messages using a set of languages such that they
can be consumed. But a medium is also both all of these things and the
product of their interaction. People learn, create, and evolve media as a
vehicle for enabling the creation and consumption of messages.
The same might be said of each of the constituents of this model. People can
be, and often are, the medium (insofar as they act as messengers), the
language (insofar as different people can be selected as messengers), or the
message (one's choice of messenger can be profoundly meaningful).
Fundamentally a person is none of these things, but they can be used as any
of these things and are the product of their experience of all of these things.
Our experience of messages, languages, media, and through them, other
people, is fundamental in shaping who we become and how we think of
ourselves and others. We invent ourselves, and others work diligently to
shape that invention, through our consumption of messages, the languages
we master, and the media we use.
Language can be, and often are, the message (that is inherent to every
message constructed with it), the medium (but only trivially), the person
(both at the level of the "language instinct" that is inherent to people
(following Pinker, xxxxx) and a socialized semiotic overlay on personal
experience), and even "the language" (insofar as we have a choice of what
language we use in constructing a given message). Fundamentally a
language is none of these things, but it can be used as any of these things
and is the product of our use of media to construct messages. We use
language, within media, to construct messages, such as definitions and
dictionaries) that construct language. We invent and evolve language as a
product of our communication.
As for messages, they reiterate all of these constituents. Every message is a
partial and incomplete precis of the language that it is constructed with, the
medium it is created in and consumed from, and the person who created it.
Every message we consume allows us to learn a little more about the

language that we interpret with, the medium we create and consume

messages in, and the person who created the message. Every message we
create is an opportunity to change and extend the language we use, evolve
the media we use, and influence the perspective that consumers of our
messages have of us. Yet fundamentally, a message is simply a message, an
attempt to communicate something we imagine such that another person
can correctly intepret the message and thus imagine the same thing.
This welter of intersecting McLuhanesque/Burkean metaphors and
interdependencies provides a second source of the models name. This model
seeks, more than anything, to position language and media as the
intermediate building blocks on which communication is built. The position of
language as a building block of messages and and communication is well
understood. Over a century of study in semantics, semiotics, and linguistics
have produced systematic theories of message and language production
which are well understood and generally accepted. The study of language is
routinely incorporated into virtually all programs in the field of
communication, including journalism, rhetoric and speech, film, theater,
broadcast media, language arts, speech and hearing sciences
telecommunications, and other variants, including departments of "language
and social interaction". The positioning of the study of media within the field
of communication is considerably more tenuous. Many departments,
including most of those named in this paragraph, focus almost entirely on
only one or two media, effectively assuming the medium such that the focus
of study can be constrained to the art of message production and
interpretation, with a heavy focus on the languages of the medium and little
real introspection about what it means to use that medium in preference to
another or the generalized ways in which all media are invented, learned,
evolved, socialized, selected or used meaningfully.
Such is, however, the primary subject matter of the newly emerging
discipline of media ecology, and this model can be seen as an attempt to
position media ecology relative to language and messages as a building block
of our communication. This model was created specifically to support theories
of media and position them relative to the process of communication. It is
hoped that the reader finds value in that positioning.
Conclusion: Theoretical and Pedogogical Value
Models are a fundamental building block of theory. They are also a
fundamental tool of instruction. Shannon's information theory model,
Weiner's Cybernetic model, and Katz' two step flow each allowed allowed
scholars decompose the process of communication into discrete structural
elements. Each provides the basis for considerable bodies of communication
theory and research. Each model also provides teachers with a powerful
pedagogical tool for teaching students to understand that communication is a
complex process in which many things can, and frequently do, go wrong; for
teaching students the ways in which they can perfect different skills at
different points in the communication process to become more effective
communicators. But while Shannon's model has proved effective across the

primary divides in the field of communication, the other models Katz' and
Weiner's models have not. Indeed, they in many ways exemplify that divide
and the differences in what is taught in courses oriented to interpersonal
communication and mass communication.
Weiner's cybernetic model accentuates the interactive structure of
communication. Katz' model accentuates its production structure. Students of
interpersonal communication are taught, through the use of the
interactive/cybernetic and transactive models that attending to the feedback
of their audience is an important part of being an effective communicator.
Students
of
mass
communication
are
taught,
through
the
intermediary/gatekeeper/two-step flow model, that controlled production
processes are an important part of being an effective communicator. The
difference is a small one and there is no denying that both attention to
feedback and attention to detail are critical skills of effective communicators,
but mass media programs focus heavily on the minutiae of production,
interpersonal programs focus heavily on the munitiae of attention to
feedback. Despite the fact that both teach both message production the
languages used in message production, and the details of the small range of
media that each typically covers, they discuss different media, to some
extent different languages, and different approaches to message production.
These differences, far more than more obvious differences like audience size
or technology, are the divides that seperate the study of interpersonal
communication from mass communication.
The ecological model of communication presented here cannot, by itself,
remediate such differences, but it does reconsitute and extend these models
in ways that make it useful, both pedogogically and theoretically, across the
normal disciplinary boundaries of the field of communication. The author has
made good use of the model in teaching a variety of courses within several
communication disciplines, including on interpersonal communication, mass
media criticism, organizational communication, communication ethics,
communication in relationships and communities, and new communication
technologies. In introductory Interpersonal Communication classes the model
has shown considerable value in outlining and tying together such diverse
topics as the social construction of the self, verbal and non-verbal languages,
listening, relationship formation and development, miscommunication,
perception, attribution, and the ways in which communication changes in
different interpersonal media. In an Organizational Communication class the
model has proved value in tying comtemporary Organizational models,
including network analysis models, satisficing, and Weick's model to key
organizational skills like effective presentation, listening, and matching the
medium to the goal and the stakeholder. In a communication ethics class it
has proved valuable in elaborating the range of participants in media who
have ethical responsibilities and the scope of their responsibilities. In a mass
media criticism class it has proved useful in showing how different critical
methods relate to the process of communication and to each other. In each
course the model has proved valuable, not only in giving students tools with
which they can decompose communication, but which they can organize the
course materials into a cohesive whole.

While the model was originally composed for pedagogical purposes, the
primary value for the author has been theoretical. The field of communication
encompasses a wide range of very different and often unintegrated theories
and methods. Context-based gaps in the field like the one between mass
media and interpersonal communication have been equated to those of "two
sovereign nations," with "different purposes, different boundaries", "different
methods", and "different theoretical orientations" (Berger and Chaffee, 1988),
causing at least some to doubt that the field can ever be united by a common
theory of communication (Craig, 1999). xxxxx The author Models of
Communication
Models are representations. There are model airplanes,
mathematical models, and models of buildings. In each case, the model is
designed to provide a simplified view of some more complex object,
phenomenon, or process, so that fundamental properties or characteristics
can be high-lightedand examined. Models highlight some features that their
designers believe are particularly critical, and there is less focus on other
features. Thus, by examining models, one learns not only about the object,
situation, or process, but also about the perspective of the designer.

FIGURE 1. Aristotelian view of communication.

In communication study, models function in this same way, allowing for the
simplification of complex dynamics to help scholars and students better
understand the components and processes that are involved. As with other
models, communication models also provide important insights into the
perspectives of the designers.
One of the first scholars to examine the communication process in terms of
its component parts was Aristotle (385-322 B. C. E.), who characterized
communication (then called "rhetoric") in terms of an orator (i.e., a speaker)
constructing an argument to be presented in a speech to an audience (i.e.,
listeners). This view is illustrated in visual form in Figure 1. This Aristotelian
view of communication usefully highlighted the perspectives of
communication thinkers until the midtwentieth century.
In the late 1940s, and through the 1950s and 1960s, a number of new
communication models were advanced. Many of the new models preserved
the basic themes of the Aristotelian perspective. In 1949, Claude Shannon
and Warren Weaver published a model that they called the "Mathematical
Model of Communication." Based on their research with telephones and
telephonic communication, the model also used boxes and arrows to

represent the communication process. However, their view was more

complex. They began with the "information source" box and then, using
arrows as the connections, progressed on to boxes for the "transmitter," the
"channel," the "receiver," and, finally, the "destination."
Box-and-arrow models of communication, of which there have been many
over the years, emphasize the components of communication(e.g., a sender,
message, and receiver) and the direction of influence. Where arrows go from
left to right, that is, from a sender to a receiver, theimplication is that it is the
sender who, through messages or speeches, brings about communication
influences on the receiver.

FIGURE 2. "Sawtooth" communication model.

Other models, including a helical-spiral model developed by Frank Dance
(1967), a circular model proposed by Lee Thayer (1968), and a "sawtooth"
model advanced by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin, and Don Jackson (1967),
emphasized the dynamic and evolutionary nature of the communication
process rather than the components or the directions of influence.
A "sawtooth" model that is similar to the sort advanced by Watzlawick,
Beavin, and Jackson(1967) is shown in Figure 2. The lines represent messages
that are exchanged during the course of a communication event. The
downward lines with arrows represent messages sent by Person 1, while the
upward lines represent messages initiated by Person 2. A model of this sort
highlights the communication process, dynamics, and history, while it
minimizes the emphasis on direction of influence.
Other types of models that have become popular emphasize communication
networksthe flow of messages among individuals in a group or
organization, for example. Such a model for a hypothetical group is depicted
in Figure 3. Each circle represents an individual, and the arrows denote
messages.
Communication models serve to clarify the nature of communication, to
provide a guide for research, and to offer a means of displaying research
findings. Such models are a tool by which scholars, practitioners, and
students can illustrate their thinking about what they consider to be the most
important aspects of communication.

repeatedly finds these gaps and boundaries problematic

It may be be that complex model of the communication process that bridges
the theoretical orientations of interpersonal, organizational, and mass media
perspectives can help to bridge this gap and provide something more than
the kind of metamodel that Craig calls for. Defining media directly into the
process of communication may help to provide the kind of substrate that
would satisfy Cappella's (1991) suggestion we can "remake the field by
altering the organizational format", replacing contexts with processes that
operate within the scope of media. This perspective does exactly that. The
result does not integrate all of communication theory, but it may provide a
useful starting point on which a more integrated communication theory can
be built. The construction of such theory is the author's primary objective in
forwarding this model for your comment and, hopefully, your response.
Communication Models
A. What is a Model?
1.
Mortensen: In the broadest sense, a model is a systematic
representation of an object or event in idealized and abstract form. Models
are somewhat arbitrary by their nature. The act of abstracting eliminates
certain details to focus on essential factors. . . . The key to the usefulness of a
model is the degree to which it conforms--in point-by-point correspondence-to the underlying determinants of communicative behavior.
2.
Communication models are merely pictures; theyre even distorting
pictures, because they stop or freeze an essentially dynamic interactive or
transactive process into a static picture.
3.
Models are metaphors. They allow us to see one thing in terms of
another.

B.

The Advantages of Models

1.
They should allow us to ask questions.
Mortensen: A good model is useful, then, in providing both general
perspective and particular vantage points from which to ask questions
and to interpret the raw stuff of observation. The more complex the
subject matterthe more amorphous and elusive the natural
boundariesthe greater are the potential rewards of model building.
2.
They should clarify complexity.
Models also clarify the structure of complex events. They do this, as
Chapanis (1961) noted, by reducing complexity to simpler, more
familiar terms. . . Thus, the aim of a model is not to ignore complexity
or to explain it away, but rather to give it order and coherence.
3.
They should lead us to new discoveries-most important, according to
Mortensen.
At another level models have heuristic value; that is, they provide new
ways to conceive of hypothetical ideas and relationships. This may well
be their most important function. With the aid of a good model,
suddenly we are jarred from conventional modes of thought. . . .
Ideally, any model, even when studied casually, should offer new
insights and culminate in what can only be described as an Aha!
experience.

C.

Limitations of Models
1.
Can lead to oversimplifications.
There is no denying that much of the work in designing
communication models illustrates the oft-repeated charge that
anything in human affairs which can be modeled is by definition too
superficial to be given serious consideration.
Some, like Duhems (1954), believe there is no value in models at all:

We can guard against the risks of oversimplification by recognizing the

fundamental distinction between simplification and oversimplification.
By definition, and of necessity, models simplify. So do all comparisons.
As Kaplan (1964) noted, Science always simplifies; its aim is not to
reproduce the reality in all its complexity, but only to formulate what is
essential for understanding, prediction, or control. That a model is
simpler than the subject-matter being inquired into is as much a virtue
as a fault, and is, in any case, inevitable [p. 280]. So the real question
is what gets simplified. Insofar as a model ignores crucial variables and
recurrent relationships, it is open to the charge of oversimplification. If
the essential attributes or particulars of the event are included, the
model is to be credited with the virtue of parsimony, which insistswhere everything is equal-that the simplest of two interpretations is
superior. Simplification, after all, is inherent in the act of abstracting.
For example, an ordinary orange has a vast number of potential
attributes; it is necessary to consider only a few when one decides to
eat an orange, but many more must be taken into account when one
wants to capture the essence of an orange in a prize-winning
photograph. abstracting. For example, an ordinary orange has a vast
number of potential attributes; it is necessary to consider only a few
when one decides to eat an orange, but many more must be taken into
account when one wants to capture the essence of an orange in a
prize-winning photograph.
Models can miss important points of comparison. Chapanis (1961), A
model can tolerate a considerable amount of slop [p. 118].
2.
Can lead of a confusion of the model between the behavior it
portrays
Mortensen: Critics also charge that models are readily confused with
reality. The problem typically begins with an initial exploration of some
unknown territory. . . .Then the model begins to function as a
substitute for the event: in short, the map is taken literally. And what is
worse, another form of ambiguity is substituted for the uncertainty the
map was designed to minimize. What has happened is a sophisticated
version of the general semanticists admonition that the map is not
the territory. Spain is not pink because it appears that way on the
map, and Minnesota is not up because it is located near the top of
a United States map.
The proper antidote lies in acquiring skill in the art of map reading.
3.
Premature Closure
The model designer may escape the risks of oversimplification and
map reading and still fall prey to dangers inherent in abstraction. To
press for closure is to strive for a sense of completion in a system.
Kaplan (1964):

The danger is that the model limits our awareness of unexplored

possibilities of conceptualization. We tinker with the model when we
might be better occupied with the subject-matter itself. In many areas
of human behavior, our knowledge is on the level of folk wisdom ...
incorporating it in a model does not automatically give such knowledge
scientific status. The majority of our ideas is usually a matter of slow
growth, which cannot be forced.... Closure is premature if it lays down
the lines for our thinking to follow when we do not know enough to say
even whether one direction or another is the more promising. Building
a model, in short, may crystallize our thoughts at a stage when they
are better left in solution, to allow new compounds to precipitate [p.
279].
One can reduce the hazards only by recognizing that physical reality
can be represented in any number of ways.
D.

Classical Communication Models

1.
Aristotles definition of rhetoric. Ehninger, Gronbeck and Monroe:
One of the earliest definitions of communication came from the Greek
philosopher-teacher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.).
a.
Rhetoric is the faculty of observing in any given case the
available means of persuasion (Rhetoric 1335b).
b.
Aristotles speaker-centered model received perhaps its fullest
development in the hands of Roman educator Quintilian (ca. 35-95
A.D.), whoseInstitutio Oratoria was filled with advice on the full
training of a good speaker-statesman.

2.

Aristotles model of proof. Kinnevay also sees a model of communication

in Aristotles description of proof:
a.
Logos, inheres in the content or the message itself
b.
Pathos, inheres in the audience
c.
Ethos, inheres in the speaker

3.

Bitzers Rhetorical Situation. Lloyd Bitzer developed described

the Rhetorical Situation, which, while not a model, identifies some of
the classical components of a communication situation (The
Rhetorical Situation, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 1 (Winter, 1968):1-15.).
Bitzer defines the rhetorical situation as a complex of persons,
events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential
exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse,
introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or
action so as to bring about significant modification of the exigence.

E. Early Linear Models

1.
The Shannon-Weaver Mathematical Model, 1949
a.
Background
i.
Claude Shannon, an engineer for the Bell Telephone Company,
designed the most influential of all early communication models.
His goal was to formulate a theory to guide the efforts of engineers
in finding the most efficient way of transmitting electrical signals
from one location to another (Shannon and Weaver, 1949).
Later Shannon introduced a mechanism in the receiver which
corrected for differences between the transmitted and received
signal; this monitoring or correcting mechanism was the forerunner
of the now widely used concept of feedback (information which a
communicator gains from others in response to his own verbal
behavior).

b.

Strengths
i.
This model, or a variation on it, is the most common communication
model used in low-level communication texts.

ii.

Significant development. Within a decade a host of other disciplines

many in the behavioral sciencesadapted it to countless
interpersonal situations, often distorting it or making exaggerated
claims for its use.
iii. Taken as an approximation of the process of human communication.
iv. Significant heuristic value.
1.) With only slight changes in terminology, a number of
nonmathematical schemas have elaborated on the major theme. For
example, Harold Lasswell (1948) conceived of analyzing the mass
media in five stages: Who? Says what? In which channel? To
whom? With what effect? In apparent elaboration on Lasswell and/or
Shannon and Weaver, George Gerbner (1956) extended the
components to include the notions of perception, reactions to a
situation, and message context.
v.
The concepts of this model became staples in communication research
1.) Entropy-the measure of uncertainty in a system. Uncertainty or
entropy increases in exact proportion to the number of messages from
which the source has to choose. In the simple matter of flipping a coin,
entropy is low because the destination knows the probability of a coins
turning up either heads or tails. In the case of a two-headed coin, there
can be neither any freedom of choice nor any reduction in uncertainty
so long as the destination knows exactly what the outcome must be. In
other words, the value of a specific bit of information depends on the
probability that it will occur. In general, the informative value of an
item in a message decreases in exact proportion to the likelihood of its
occurrence.
2.) Redundancy-the degree to which information is not unique in the
system. Those items in a message that add no new information are
redundant. Perfect redundancy is equal to total repetition and is found
in pure form only in machines. In human beings, the very act of
repetition changes, in some minute way, the meaning or the message
and the larger social significance of the event. Zero redundancy
creates sheer unpredictability, for there is no way of knowing what
items in a sequence will come next. As a rule, no message can reach
maximum efficiency unless it contains a balance between the
unexpected and the predictable, between what the receiver must have
underscored to acquire understanding and what can be deleted as
extraneous.

3.) Noise-the measure of information not related to the message. Any

additional signal that interferes with the reception of information is
noise. In electrical apparatus noise comes only from within the system,
whereas in human activity it may occur quite apart from the act of
transmission and reception. Interference may result, for example, from
background noise in the immediate surroundings, from noisy channels
(a crackling microphone), from the organization and semantic aspects
of the message (syntactical and semantical noise), or from
psychological interference with encoding and decoding. Noise need not
be considered a detriment unless it produces a significant interference
with the reception of the message. Even when the disturbance is
substantial, the strength of the signal or the rate of redundancy may
be increased to restore efficiency.
4.) Channel Capacity-the measure of the maximum amount of
information a channel can carry. The battle against uncertainty
depends upon the number of alternative possibilities the message
eliminates. Suppose you wanted to know where a given checker was
located on a checkerboard. If you start by asking if it is located in the
first black square at the extreme left of the second row from the top
and find the answer to be no, sixty-three possibilities remain-a high
level of uncertainty. On the other hand, if you first ask whether it falls
on any square at the top half of the board, the alternative will be
reduced by half regardless of the answer. By following the first strategy
it could be necessary to ask up to sixty-three questions (inefficient
indeed!); but by consistently halving the remaining possibilities, you
will obtain the right answer in no more than six tries.
vi. Provided an influential yet counter-intuitive definition of communication.
From Littlejohn, Stephen W. Theories of Human Communication.
Second Ed. Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1983, p 116.
Information is a measure of uncertainty, or entropy, in a situation. The
greater the uncertainty, the more the information. When a situation is
completely predictable, no information is pres ent. Most people
associate information with certainty or knowledge; consequently, this
definition from information theory can be con fusing. As used by the
information theorist, the concept does not refer to a message, facts, or
meaning. It is a concept bound only to the quantification of stimuli or
signals in a situa tion.
On closer examination, this idea of informa tion is not as distant from
common sense as it first appears. We have said that information is the
amount of uncertainty in the situation. An other way of thinking of it is
to consider infor mation as the number of messages required to
completely reduce the uncertainty in the situa tion. For example, your
friend is about to flip a coin. Will it land heads up or tails up? You are
uncertain, you cannot predict. This uncertainty, which results from the
entropy in the situation, will be eliminated by seeing the result of the
flip. Now lets suppose that you have received a tip that your friends
coin is two headed. The flip is fixed. There is no uncertainty and
therefore no information. In other words, you could not receive any
message that would make you predict any better than you already

have. In short, a situation with which you are com pletely familiar has
no information for you [emphasis added].
vii. See Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of
Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949). For a number
of excellent brief secondary sources, see the bibliography. Two sources
were particu larly helpful in the preparation of this chapter: Allan R.
Broadhurst and Donald K. Darnell, An Introduction to Cybernetics and
Information Theory, Quarterly Journal of Speech 51 (1965): 442-53; Klaus
Krippendorf, Information Theory, in Communication and Behavior, ed. G.
Hanneman and W. McEwen (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975), 35189.

c.
i.

Weaknesses
Not analogous to much of human communication.
1.) Only a fraction of the information conveyed in interpersonal
encounters can be taken as remotely corresponding to the teletype
action of statistically rare or redundant signals.
2.) Though Shannons technical concept of information is fascinating in
many respects, it ranks among the least important ways of conceiving
of what we recognize as information.
ii.
Only formaldoes not account for content
1.) Mortensen: Shannon and Weaver were concerned only with technical
problems associated with the selection and arrangement of discrete
units of informationin short, with purely formal matters, not content.
Hence, their model does not apply to semantic or pragmatic
dimensions of language.
2.) Theodore Roszak provides a thoughtful critique of Shannons
model in The Cult of Information. Roszak notes the unique way in
whichShannon defined information:
Once, when he was explaining his work to a group of prominent
scientists who challenged his eccentric definition, he replied, I think
perhaps the word information is causing more trouble . . . than it is
worth, except that it is difficult to find another word that is anywhere
near right. It should be kept solidly in mind that [information] is only a
measure of the difficulty in transmitting the sequences produced by
some information source [emphasis added]
3.) As Roszak points out, Shannons model has no mechanism for
distinguishing important ideas from pure non-sense:
In much the same way, in its new technical sense, information has
come to denote whatever can be coded for transmission through a
channel that connects a source with a receiver, regardless of semantic
content. For Shannons purposes, all the following are information:
E = mc2
Jesus saves.
Thou shalt not kill.
I think, therefore I am.
Phillies 8, Dodgers 5
Twas brillig and the slithy roves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
And indeed, these are no more or less meaningful than any string of
haphazard bits (x!9#44jGH?566MRK) I might be willing to pay to have
telexed across the continent.
As the mathematician Warren Weaver once put it, explaining the
strange way in which, in this theory, the word information is used ....
It is surprising but true that, from the present viewpoint, two
messages, one heavily loaded with meaning and the other pure
nonsense, can be equivalent as regards information [emphasis
added].
iii. Static and Linear

1.) Mortensen: Finally, the most serious shortcoming of the ShannonWeaver communication system is that it is relatively static and linear. It
conceives of a linear and literal transmission of information from one
location to another. The notion of linearity leads to misleading ideas
when transferred to human conduct; some of the problems can best be
underscored
by
studying
several
alternative
models
of
communication.
2.
Berlos S-M-C-R, 1960
a.
Background
i.
Ehninger, Gronbeck and Monroe: The simplest and most influential
message-centered model of our time came from David Berlo (Simplified
from David K. Berlo, The Process of Communication (New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1960)):
ii.
Essentially an adaptation of the Shannon-Weaver model.

b.

Significant after World War II because:

i.
The idea of source was flexible enough to include oral, written,
electronic, or any other kind of symbolic generator-of-messages.
ii.
Message was made the central element, stressing the transmission
of ideas.
iii. The model recognized that receivers were important to
communication, for they were the targets.
iv. The notions of encoding and decoding emphasized the problems
we all have (psycho-linguistically) in translating our own thoughts into
words or other symbols and in deciphering the words or symbols of
others into terms we ourselves can understand.
c.
Weaknesses:
i.
Tends to stress the manipulation of the messagethe encoding and
decoding processes
ii.
it implies that human communication is like machine communication,
like signal-sending in telephone, television, computer, and radar
systems.
iii. It even seems to stress that most problems in human communication
can be solved by technical accuracy-by choosing the right symbols,
preventing interference, and sending efficient messages.
iv. But even with the right symbols, people misunderstand each other.
Problems in meaning or meaningfulness often arent a matter of
comprehension, but of reaction, of agreement, of shared concepts,
beliefs, attitudes, values. To put the com- back into communication, we
need a meaning-centered theory of communication.
3.
Schramms Interactive Model, 1954
a.
Background
Wilbur Schramm (1954) was one of the first to alter the mathematical
model of Shannon and Weaver. He conceived of decoding and encoding as
activities maintained simultaneously by sender and receiver; he also
made provisions for a two-way interchange of messages. Notice also the
inclusion of an interpreter as an abstract representation of the problem
of meaning.
(From Wilbur Schramm, How Communication Works, in The Process and
Effects of Communication, ed. Wilbur Schramm (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1954), pp. 3-26):

b.

Strengths
i.
Schramm provided the additional notion of a field of experience, or
the psychological frame of reference; this refers to the type of
orientation or attitudes which interactants maintain toward each other.
ii.
Included Feedback
1.) Communication is reciprocal, two-way, even though the feedback
may be delayed.
a.) Some of these methods of communication are very direct, as
when you talk in direct response to someone.
b.) Others are only moderately direct; you might squirm when a
speaker drones on and on, wrinkle your nose and scratch your
head when a message is too abstract, or shift your body position
when you think its your turn to talk.
c.) Still other kinds of feedback are completely indirect.
2.) For example,
a.) politicians discover if theyre getting their message across by
the number of votes cast on the first Tuesday in November;
b.) commercial sponsors examine sales figures to gauge their
communicative effectiveness in ads;
c.) teachers measure their abilities to get the material across in a
particular course by seeing how many students sign up for it the
next term.
iii. Included Context
1.) A message may have different meanings, depending upon the
specific context or setting.
2.) Shouting Fire! on a rifle range produces one set of reactionsreactions quite different from those produced in a crowded theater.

iv. Included Culture

1.) A message may have different meanings associated with it
depending upon the culture or society. Communication systems,
thus, operate within the confines of cultural rules and expectations
to which we all have been educated.
v.
Other model designers abstracted the dualistic aspects of
communication as a series of loops, (Mysak, 1970), speech cycles
(Johnson, 1953), co-orientation (Newcomb, 1953), and overlapping
psychological fields (Fearing, 1953).
c.
Weaknesses
i.
Schramms model, while less linear, still accounts for only bilateral
communication between two parties. The complex, multiple levels of
communication between several sources is beyond this model.
F.

Non-linear Models
1.
Dances Helical Spiral, 1967
a.
Background
i.
Depicts communication as a dynamic process. Mortensen: The helix
represents the way communication evolves in an individual from his birth
to the existing moment.
ii.
Dance: At any and all times, the helix gives geometrical testimony to
the concept that communication while moving forward is at the same
moment coming back upon itself and being affected by its past behavior,
for the coming curve of the helix is fundamentally affected by the curve
from which it emerges. Yet, even though slowly, the helix can gradually
free itself from its lower-level distortions. The communication process, like
the helix, is constantly moving forward and yet is always to some degree
dependent upon the past, which informs the present and the future. The
helical communication model offers a flexible communication process [p.
296].

b.

Strengths
i.
Mortensen: As a heuristic device, the helix is interesting not so
much for what it says as for what it permits to be said. Hence, it
exemplifies a point made earlier: It is important to approach models
in a spirit of speculation and intellectual play.
ii.
Chapanis (1961) called sophisticated play:
The helix implies that communication is continuous, unrepeatable,
additive, and accumulative; that is, each phase of activity depends
upon present forces at work as they are defined by all that has
occurred before. All experience contributes to the shape of the
unfolding moment; there is no break in the action, no fixed
beginning, no pure redundancy, no closure. All communicative
experience is the product of learned, nonrepeatable events which
are defined in ways the organism develops to be self-consistent and
socially meaningful. In short, the helix underscores the integrated
aspects of all human communication as an evolving process that is
always turned inward in ways that permit learning, growth, and
discovery.
c.
Weaknesses
i.
May not be a model at all: too few variables.
Mortensen: If judged against conventional scientific standards, the
helix does not fare well as a model. Indeed, some would claim that
it does not meet the requirements of a model at all. More
specifically, it is not a systematic or formalized mode of
representation. Neither does it formalize relationships or isolate key
variables. It describes in the abstract but does not explicitly explain
or make particular hypotheses testable.
ii.
Generates Questions, but leaves much unaswered.
Mortensen: For example, does not the helix imply a false degree of
continuity from one communicative situation to another? Do we
necessarily perceive all encounters as actually occurring in an
undifferentiated, unbroken sequence of events? Does an unbroken
line not conflict with the human experience of discontinuity,
intermittent periods, false starts, and so forth? Is all communication
a matter of growth, upward and onward, in an ever-broadening
range of encounters? If the helix represents continuous learning
and growth, how can the same form also account for deterioration
and decay? What about the forces of entropy, inertia, decay, and
pathology? And does not the unbroken line of a helix tacitly ignore
the qualitative distinctions that inevitably characterize different
communicative events? Also, what about movements which we
define as utterly wasted, forced, or contrived? Along similar lines,
how can the idea of continuous, unbroken growth include events we
consider meaningless, artificial, or unproductive? Countless other
questions could be raised. And that is the point. The model brings
problems of abstraction into the open. rtificial, or unproductive?
Countless other questions could be raised. And that is the point.
The model brings problems of abstraction into the open.

2.

Westley and MacLeans Conceptual Model, 1957

a.
Background
i.
Westley and MacLean realized that communication does not
begin when one person starts to talk, but rather when a person
responds selectively to his immediate physical surroundings.
ii.
Each interactant responds to his sensory experience (X1 . . . ) by
abstracting out certain objects of orientation (X1 . . . 3m). Some
items are selected for further interpretation or coding (X) and then
are transmitted to another person, who may or may not be
responding to the same objects of orientation (X,b),

A conceptual model of communication. (Reprinted with permission

from Westley and MacLean, Jr., 1957.)
(a) Objects of orientation (X 1 ... X) in the sensory field of the receiver
(B) are trans mitted directly to him in abstracted form (XZ ... X 3) after
a process of selection from among all Xs, such selection being based
at least in part on the needs and problems of B. Some or all messages
are transmitted in more than one sense (X3m, for example).
(b) The same Xs are selected and abstracted by communicator A and
transmitted as a message (x') to B, who may or may not have part or

all of the Xs in his own sensory field (X1b). Whether on purpose or not,
B transmits feedback (fBA) to A.
(c) The Xs that B receives may result from selected abstractions which
are transmitted without purpose by encoder C, who acts for B and thus
extends B's environment. C's selections are necessarily based in part
on feedback (fBC) from B.
(d) The messages which C transmits to B (x") represent C's selections
both from the messages he gets from A (x') and from the abstractions
in his own sensory field (X3c, X 4), which may or may not be in A's field.
Feedback moves not only from B to A (fBA) and from B to C (f BC) but
also from C to A (fCA). Clearly, in mass communication, a large
number of Cs receive from a very large number of As and transmit to a
vastly larger number of Bs, who simultaneously receive emssages
from other Cs.

b.

Strengths
i.
ii.

Accounts for Feedback

Accounts for a sensory field or, in Newcombs (1953) words, objects
of co-orientation.
iii. Accounts for non-binary interactionsmore than just two people
communicating directly.
iv. Accounts for different modes. E.g. interpersonal vs. mass mediated
communication.
c.
Weaknesses
i.
Westley and MacLeans model accounts for many more variables in
the typical communication interaction. It is, however, still twodimensional. It cannot account for the multiple dimensions of the
typical communication event involving a broad context and multiple
message.

3.

Becke
rs Mosaic Model, 1968
a.
Background
i.
Mortensen: Becker assumes that most communicative acts link
message elements from more than one social situation. In the tracing
of various elements of a message, it is clear that the items may result
in part from a talk with an associate, from an obscure quotation read
years before, from a recent TV commercial, and from numerous other
dissimilar situationsmoments of introspection, public debate, coffeeshop banter, daydreaming, and so on. In short, the elements that make
up a message ordinarily occur in bits and pieces. Some items are
separated by gaps in time, others by gaps in modes of presentation, in
social situations, or in the number of persons present.
ii.
Mortensen: Becker likens complex communicative events to the
activity of a receiver who moves through a constantly changing cube
or mosaic of information . The layers of the cube correspond to layers
of information. Each section of the cube represents a potential source
of information; note that some are blocked out in recognition that at
any given point some bits of information are not available for use.
Other layers correspond to potentially relevant sets of information.
b.
Strengths (from Mortensen)

i.

It depicts the incredible complexity of communication as influenced

by a constantly changing milieu.
ii.
It also accounts for variations in exposure to messages. In some
circumstances receivers may be flooded by relevant information; in
others they may encounter only a few isolated items. Individual
differences also influence level of exposure; some people seem to be
attuned to a large range of information, while others miss or dismiss
much as extraneous.
iii. Different kinds of relationships between people and messages cut
through the many levels of exposure. Some relationships are confined
to isolated situations, others to recurrent events. Moreover, some
relationships center on a particular message, while others focus on
more diffuse units; that is, they entail a complex set of relationships
between a given message and the larger backdrop of information
against which it is interpreted.
iv. It may be useful to conceive of an interaction between two mosaics.
One comprises the information in a given social milieu, as depicted in
the model; the other includes the private mosaic of information that is
internal to the receiver. The internal mosaic is every bit as complex as
the one shown in the model, but a person constructs it for himself.
c.
Weaknesses
i.
Even though this model adds a third dimension, it does not easily
account for all the possible dimensions involved in a communication
event.

G. Multidimensional Models
1.
Ruesch and Bateson, Functional Model, 1951
a.
Mortensen: Ruesch and Bateson conceived of communication as
functioning simultaneously at four levels of analysis. One is the basic
intrapersonal process (level 1). The next (level 2) is interpersonal and
focuses on the overlapping fields of experience of two interactants.
Group interaction (level 3) comprises many people. And finally a
cultural level (level 4) links large groups of people. Moreover, each
level of activity consists of four communicative functions: evaluating,
sending, receiving, and channeling. Notice how the model focuses less
on the structural attributes of communication-source, message,
receiver, etc.and more upon the actual determinants of the process.
b.
Mortensen: A similar concern with communicative functions can be
traced through the models of Carroll (1955), Fearing (1953), Mysak
(1970), Osgood (1954), and Peterson (1958). Petersons model is one
of the few to integrate the physiological and psychological functions at
work in all interpersonal events.
2.
Barnlunds Transactional Model, 1970
a.
Background
i.
Mortensen: By far the most systematic of the functional models
is the transactional approach taken by Barnlund (1970, pp. 83-102),
one of the few investigators who made explicit the key assumptions
on which his model was based.
ii.
Mortensen: Its most striking feature is the absence of any simple
or linear directionality in the interplay between self and the physical
world. The spiral lines connect the functions of encoding and
decoding and give graphic representation to the continuous,
unrepeatable, and irreversible assumptions mentioned earlier.
Moreover, the directionality of the arrows seems deliberately to
suggest that meaning is actively assigned or attributed rather than
simply passively received.

iii. Any one of three signs or cues may elicit a sense of meaning.
Public cues (Cpu) derive from the environment. They are either
natural, that is, part of the physical world, or artificial and manmade. Private objects of orientation (Cpr) are a second set of cues.
They go beyond public inspection or awareness. Examples include
the cues gained from sunglasses, earphones, or the sensory cues of
taste and touch. Both public and private cues may be verbal or
nonverbal in nature. What is critical is that they are outside the
direct and deliberate control of the interactants. The third set of
cues
are
deliberate;
they
are
the
behavioral
and
nonverbal (Cbehj cues that a person initiates and controls himself.
Again, the process involving deliberate message cues is reciprocal.
Thus, the arrows connecting behavioral cues stand both for the act
of producing them-technically a form of encoding-and for the
interpretation that is given to an act of others (decoding). The
jagged lines (VVVV ) at each end of these sets of cues illustrate the
fact that the number of available cues is probably without limit.
Note also the valence signs (+, 0, or -) that have been attached to
public, private, and behavioral cues. They indicate the potency or
degree of attractiveness associated with the cues. Presumably,
each cue can differ in degree of strength as well as in kind. t each
end of these sets of cues illustrate the fact that the number of
available cues is probably without limit. Note also the valence signs
(+, 0, or -) that have been attached to public, private, and
behavioral cues. They indicate the potency or degree of
attractiveness associated with the cues. Presumably, each cue can
differ in degree of strength as well as in kind."

b.

Strengths
Mortensen: The assumptions posit a view of communication as
transactions in which communicators attribute meaning to events in ways
that are dynamic, continuous, circular, unrepeatable, irreversible, and
complex.
c.
Weaknesses
Mortensen: The exception is the assumption that communication
describes the evolution of meaning. In effect, the model presupposes that
the terms communication and meaning are synonymous and
interchangeable. Yet nowhere does the model deal in even a rudimentary
way with the difficult problem of meaning. The inclusion of decoding and
encoding may be taken as only a rough approximation of the evolution of
meaning, but such dualistic categories are not particularly useful in
explaining the contingencies of meaning.
H.

Suggestions for Communication Models

1.
A Systemic Model of Communication, 1972
a.
Background

Some communication theorists have attempted to construct models in

light of General Systems Theory. The key assumption of GST is that
every part of the system is so related to every other part that any
change in one aspect results in dynamic changes in all other parts of
the total system (Hall and Fagen, 1956). It is necessary, then, to think
of communication not so much as individuals functioning under their
own autonomous power but rather as persons interacting through
messages. Hence, the minimum unit of measurement is that which ties
the respective parties and their surroundings into a coherent and
indivisible whole.
b.
A Systemic Communication Model would have to address the
following axioms by Watzlawick and his associates (1967).
i.
The Impossibility of Not Communicating
Interpersonal behavior has no opposites. It is not possible to
conceive of non-behavior. If all behavior in an interactional situation
can be taken as having potential message value, it follows that no
matter what is said and done, one cannot not communicate.
Silence and inactivity are no exceptions. Even when one person
tries to ignore the overtures of another, he nonetheless
communicates a disinclination to talk.
ii.
Content and Relationship in Communication
All face-to-face encounters require some sort of personal
recognition and commitment which in turn create and define the
relationship between the respective parties. Communication,
wrote Watzlawick (1967), not only conveys information, but ... at
the same time . . . imposes behavior [p. 51]. Any activity that
communicates information can be taken as synonymous with the
content of the message, regardless of whether it is true or false,
valid or invalid. . . . Each spoken word, every movement of the
body, and all the eye glances furnish a running commentary on how
each person sees himself, the other person, and the other persons
reactions.
iii. The Punctuation of the Sequence of Events
Human beings set up between them patterns of interchange
(about which they may or may not be in agreement) and these
patterns will in fact be rules of contingency regarding the exchange
of reinforcement [pp. 273-274].
iv. Symmetrical and Complementary Interaction

A symmetrical relationship evolves in the direction of heightening

similarities; a complementary relationship hinges increasingly on
individual differences. The word symmetrical suggests a
relationship in which the respective parties mirror the behavior of
the other. Whatever one does, the other tends to respond in kind.
Thus, an initial act of trust fosters a trusting response; suspicion
elicits suspicion; warmth and congeniality encourage more of the
same, and so on. In sharp contrast is a complementary relationship,
where individual differences complement or dovetail into a
sequence of change. Whether the complementary actions are good
or bad, productive or injurious, is not relevant to the concept.
2.
Browns Holographic Model, 1987
a.
Background
i.
Rhetorical theorist, William Brown, proposed The Holographic
View of Argument (Argumentation, 1 (1987): 89-102).
ii.
Arguing against an analytical approach to communication that
dissects the elements of communication, Brown argued for seeing
argument or communication as a hologram which as a metaphor
for the nature of argument emphasizes not the knowledge that
comes from seeing the parts in the whole but rather that which
arises from seeing the whole in each part.
iii. The ground of argument in a holographic structure is a
boundaryless event.
b.
A model of communication based on Browns holographic metaphor
would see connections between divided elements and divisions
between connections.
3.
A Fractal Model
a.
Background
i.
Polish-born mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot, while working for IBM in
the 1960s and 70s, became intrigued with the possibility of deriving
apparently irregular shapes with a mathematical formula. "Clouds are not
spheres," he said, "mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles,
and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line." So if
these regular geometric forms could not account for natural patterns,
what could?
ii.
To solve the problem, Mandelbrot developed the fractal, a simple,
repeating shape that can be created by repeating the same formula over
and over.
I coined fractal from the Latin adjective fractus. The corresponding Latin
verb frangere means to break: to create irregular fragments. It is therefore
sensibleand how appropriate for our needs!that, in addition to
fragmented fractus should also mean irregular, both meanings being
preserved in fragment. Benoit Mandelbrot

Natural patterns such as economic markets and weather patterns.

Construction of a Fractal Snowflake
A Koch snowflake is constructed by making progressive additions to a simple
triangle. The additions are made by dividing the equilateral triangles sides
into thirds, then creating a new triangle on each middle third. Thus, each
frame shows more complexity, but every new triangle in the design looks
exactly like the initial one. This reflection of the larger design in its smaller
details is characteristic of all fractals.
iii. Fractal shapes occur everywhere in nature: a head of broccoli, a leaf, a
snowflakealmost any natural form.
iv. Mandelbrots discovery changed computer graphicsby using fractal
formulas, graphic engines could create natural-looking virtual landscapes.
More importantly, fractal formulas can account for variations in other

Mandelbrot Set
Polish-born French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot coined the term
fractal to describe complex geometric shapes that, when magnified,
continue to resemble the shapes larger structure. This property, in which the
pattern of the whole repeats itself on smaller and smaller scales, is called self
similarity. The fractal shown here, called the Mandelbrot set, is the graphical
representation of a mathematical function.

v.

Fractals allow for almost infinite density. For example, Mandelbrot

considered the deceptively simple question: How long is the coast line
ofBritain? A typical answer will ignore inlets and bays smaller than a
certain size. But if we account for these small coastline features, and then
those smaller still, we would soon find ourselves with a line of potentially
infinite and constantly changing length. A fractal equation could account
for such a line.
vi. Fractal geometry is in some ways related to chaos theory, the science of
finding pattern in apparently random sequences, like a dripping faucet or
weather patterns. Chaos theory has been applied to computer-generated
landscapes,
organizational
structures
(http://www.cio.com/archive/enterprise/041598_qanda_content.ht
ml), and even washing machines. Of course, it has also been applied to
economics
and
the
stock
market,
in
particular:
The stock markets are said to be nonlinear, dynamic systems. Chaos
theory is the mathematics of studying such nonlinear, dynamic
systems. Does this mean that chaoticians can predict when stocks will
rise and fall? Not quite; however, chaoticians have determined that the
market prices are highly random, but with a trend. The stock market is
accepted as a self-similar system in the sense that the individual parts
are related to the whole. Another self-similar system in the area of
mathematics are fractals. Could the stock market be associated with a
fractal? Why not? In the market price action, if one looks at the market
monthly, weekly, daily, and intra day bar charts, the structure has a
similar appearance. However, just like a fractal, the stock market has
sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This factor is what makes
dynamic market systems so difficult to predict. Because we cannot
accurately describe the current situation with the detail necessary, we
cannot accurately predict the state of the system at a future time.
Stock market success can be predicted by chaoticians. Short-term
investing, such as intra day exchanges are a waste of time. Short-term
traders will fail over time due to nothing more than the cost of trading.
However, over time, long-term price action is not random. Traders can
succeed trading from daily or weekly charts if they follow the trends. A
system can be random in the short-term and deterministic in the long
term
(http://www.duke.edu/~mjd/chaos/chaos.html).

vii. One key premise in both chaos theory and fractals is "sensitive
dependence on initial conditions." One early chaos theorist studying
weather patterns stumbled on this when he was using a simple computer
program to plot the course of only 12 weather variables. The computer
printout ran out of paper, so he noted the status of the variables at an
earlier point, stopped the process, replaced the paper and restarted the
process at the earlier point. Even though the variables started at the same
point, the patterns quickly diverged, demonstrating the similar or even
identical initial conditions can lead to radically different outcomes (This
story
is
in
James
Gleick, Chaos:
Making
A
New
Science).
This phenomenon led researchers to talk about "the butterfly effect" to
illustrate how a very small change can produce significant changes in a
system. The butterfly effect refers to the fact that a butterfly flapping its
wings over Beijing can result in a change in the weather patterns in New
York
two
months
later.
b.

Applying Fractals to Communication

i.
Like Dances Helix, seeing communication as a fractal form allows us to
conceptualize the almost infinite density of a communication event.
ii.
Margaret J. Wheatley has attempted to apply Fractal theory and the
science of chaos to management. (Leadership and the New Science:
Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco, CA:
Berrett-Kohler Publishers, 1992.) You can read some of Wheatley's
ideas here.
iii. The significance of this for the topic at hand is this: First, the patterns of
complexity in natural systems, of which human beings are a part, is
profoundly complex and not easily captured in any formula. Therefore, any
predictions about the outcome of these systems are necessarily limited
because of the difficulty of being sensitive to initial conditions. A model of
communication drawn from fractals and chaos theory would have to
reflect this complexity and respond to variations in initial conditions.
iv. In addition, if we marry the fractal to other mathematical constructs, we
can develop an even richer heuristic.
1.) The mathematician Rudy Rucker, in a way that only mathematicians
can, said Life is a fractal in Hilbert space. (Mind Tools: The Five
Levels of Mathematical Reality (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1987) 248.)
2.) Hilbert Space is a theoretical multi-dimensional space. Rucker is
saying that life is an infinitely variegated entity that exists in multiple
dimensions.
3.) So, we can borrow Ruckers phrase and say that communication is a
fractal in Hilbert space.

I.

SUGGESTED READINGS
1.
Barnlund,
D.
C. Interpersonal
Communication:
Survey
and
Studies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
2.
Chapanis, A. Men, Machines, and Models, American Psychologist,
16:113131, 1961.

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Deutsch, K. On Communication Models in the Social Sciences, Public

Opinion Quarterly, 16:356-380, 1952.
Gerbner, G. Toward a General Model of Communication, Audio-Visual
Communication Review, 4:171-199, 1956.
Kaplan, A. The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral
Science. San Francisco: Chandler, 1964.
Lackman, R. The Model in Theory Construction, Psychological Review,
67:113-129, 1960.
Sereno, K. K., and Mortensen, C. D. Foundations of Communication
Theory. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J., and Jackson, D. Pragmatics of Human
Communication. New York: Norton, 1967.