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Unit IV — Communication

UGC NET Paper I · General Paper on Teaching & Research Aptitude

Topics Covered

Meaning and Process of Communication Models of Communication Types and Characteristics Verbal and Non-verbal Communication Inter-cultural Communication Group Communication Classroom Communication Barriers to Communication Mass Media and Society

Contents

Topic Overview — What & Why

Unit IV is about how meaning passes, or fails to pass, from one person to another, in a classroom, a group, across cultures and through the mass media. Its questions ask you to name the element or model of communication described, to classify a kind of communication or non-verbal cue, to identify the barrier in a situation, and to match theories of mass media to their authors.

  • The process: sender, encoding, message, channel, decoding, receiver, feedback, with noise at every stage.
  • Models: Aristotle, Lasswell, Shannon and Weaver, Berlo, Schramm.
  • Non-verbal: kinesics, proxemics, haptics, chronemics, paralanguage.
  • Culture and groups: Hall's high- and low-context cultures, Hofstede's dimensions, Tuckman's stages of a group.
  • Mass media: McLuhan; agenda-setting, two-step flow, uses and gratifications, cultivation, spiral of silence.

1. Communication: Meaning, Types and Characteristics

Communication is the process of sharing meaning: ideas, information and feelings pass from a sender to a receiver, who understands and responds. The word comes from the Latin communis, "common": communication makes something common to both.

The process

  1. The sender (source) has an idea and encodes it into symbols: words, gestures, images.
  2. The message travels through a channel (medium): speech, print, telephone, e-mail.
  3. The receiver decodes it, giving it meaning.
  4. The receiver's response is feedback, which makes communication two-way.
  5. Noise is anything that distorts the message at any stage; context is the setting that shapes meaning.

Models

ModelYearKey idea
AristotleClassicalSpeaker, speech, audience (with occasion and effect); the earliest, a linear model of persuasion
Harold Lasswell1948"Who says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect?"
Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver1948–49Information source, transmitter, channel, receiver, destination; introduced noise; a mathematical, linear model
David Berlo1960SMCR: source, message, channel, receiver
Wilbur Schramm (with Charles Osgood)1954Circular and interactive; communication works where the sender's and receiver's fields of experience overlap
Frank Dance1967Helical: communication grows and builds on itself over time

Types

Characteristics

Communication is a process (continuous, not a single act); two-way; dynamic; irreversible (once said, it cannot be unsaid); contextual; purposeful; and both verbal and non-verbal at once. One cannot not communicate: silence and absence also send messages.

EXAMPLE 1 A principal sends a circular to all teachers: formal, written, downward communication. Teachers discussing it in the staff room: informal, oral, horizontal. A rumour about it reaching students: the grapevine.
EXAMPLE 2 A question asks which model first added "noise". The answer is Shannon and Weaver. One that asks which model emphasises the overlap of the sender's and receiver's experience wants Schramm.

2. Effective Communication: Verbal and Non-verbal

Verbal

Verbal communication uses words, spoken or written. It is effective when it follows the seven Cs as business communication lists them: clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous. (Cutlip and Center's seven Cs of public relations are a different list: credibility, context, content, clarity, continuity and consistency, channels, and the capability of the audience.)

Listening is half of it: active listening means attending fully, not interrupting, asking questions and restating what was heard. Hearing is physical; listening is mental.

Non-verbal

KindWhat it covers
KinesicsBody movement: gestures, posture, facial expression
OculesicsEye contact and gaze
ProxemicsThe use of space and distance (Edward T. Hall)
HapticsTouch
ChronemicsThe use of time: punctuality, waiting, pauses
Paralanguage (vocalics)How words are said: pitch, tone, volume, pace, pauses
ArtifacticsAppearance, dress and objects

Hall's four distances (proxemics), for North Americans in his study: intimate (up to about 45 cm, or 18 inches), personal (about 45 cm to 1.2 m), social (about 1.2 to 3.6 m) and public (beyond about 3.6 m, or 12 feet).

Albert Mehrabian's 7–38–55 finding (1967): when a speaker talks about feelings and attitudes, and words and tone disagree, listeners rely about 7% on the words, 38% on the tone of voice and 55% on the face. It is often misquoted as applying to all communication; it does not.

EXAMPLE 1 A teacher who says "Take your time" while looking at the clock sends two messages. The non-verbal one (chronemics and kinesics) is likely to be believed.
EXAMPLE 2 A student who sits in the back row, as far from the teacher as the room allows, is using distance: a proxemic cue.

3. Inter-cultural and Group Communication

Inter-cultural

Inter-cultural communication is communication between people of different cultures, where the same word, gesture or silence can mean different things.

Group

EXAMPLE 1 A visiting examiner from a low-context culture takes a host's "We will see" as an open question; the host, from a high-context culture, meant a polite no.
EXAMPLE 2 A new research team argues over who does what in its second week, then agrees on rules and roles. It has moved from storming to norming.

4. Classroom Communication

Classroom communication is the exchange between teacher and students, and among students, for learning. It is effective when it is two-way, clear, suited to the learners, varied in mode (spoken, written, visual), and open to questions.

Flanders' Interaction Analysis

Ned Flanders' Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS) codes classroom talk every three seconds into ten categories:

GroupCategories
Teacher talk, indirect influence1 accepts feeling; 2 praises or encourages; 3 accepts or uses students' ideas; 4 asks questions
Teacher talk, direct influence5 lectures; 6 gives directions; 7 criticises or justifies authority
Student talk8 response; 9 initiation
Silence10 silence or confusion
EXAMPLE 1 "Good point, Asha, let's build on that" is Flanders' category 3: the teacher accepts and uses a student's idea, an indirect influence.
EXAMPLE 2 A teacher asks "What is the mean?" and calls on the first raised hand at once. Waiting three to five seconds, and then asking "Why would we use the median here instead?", would draw more students in and at a higher level.

5. Barriers to Effective Communication

BarrierExamples
Physical (environmental)Noise, distance, poor acoustics, a faulty microphone, a bad connection
PhysiologicalHearing or sight problems, fatigue, illness
Semantic (language)Jargon, ambiguous words, unfamiliar language, words with different meanings to different people
Psychological (emotional)Anxiety, anger, prejudice, low attention, closed mind
PerceptualSelective perception, stereotypes, different frames of reference
CulturalDifferent norms, gestures and values
OrganisationalLong chains of command, rigid hierarchy, filtering of messages, information overload

Overcoming them: simple, clear language; checking understanding through feedback; choosing the right channel; active listening; empathy; and attention to the setting.

EXAMPLE 1 A lecturer uses "heteroscedasticity" with a first-year class without explaining it. That is a semantic barrier.
EXAMPLE 2 A manager passes on only the good news from the shop floor to the director. That is filtering, an organisational barrier.

6. Mass Media and Society

Mass media are the channels that carry messages to large, scattered and varied audiences at once: print (newspapers, magazines, books), broadcast (radio, television), film, and the new media of the internet (websites, social media, streaming).

Functions: Lasswell named surveillance of the environment, correlation of society's response, and transmission of culture; Charles Wright added entertainment. To these are often added education, persuasion and agenda-setting.

Theories

TheoryAssociated withIdea
Hypodermic needle (magic bullet)Early 20th-century propaganda studiesThe media inject messages directly into a passive audience
Two-step flowPaul Lazarsfeld, Elihu Katz (1944; 1955)Media influence passes through opinion leaders to others
Agenda-settingMaxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972)The media do not tell people what to think, but what to think about
Uses and gratificationsElihu Katz, Jay Blumler, Michael Gurevitch (1970s)An active audience uses media to satisfy its own needs
CultivationGeorge GerbnerHeavy television viewing shapes beliefs about the real world
Spiral of silenceElisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1974)People who think they are in the minority stay silent, so the majority view seems stronger still

Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media, 1964): "the medium is the message" — the form of a medium shapes society more than its content — and the idea of the global village.

Indian landmarks

EXAMPLE 1 During an election, a channel gives most of its time to unemployment, and voters later name unemployment as the main issue. That fits agenda-setting.
EXAMPLE 2 A student watches a cookery channel to relax and a lecture series to prepare for an exam. She is choosing media to meet her own needs: uses and gratifications.
Exam pointers for Unit IV.
  • Lasswell: who, says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect. Shannon and Weaver: noise. Berlo: SMCR. Schramm: field of experience.
  • Kinesics = body; proxemics = space; haptics = touch; chronemics = time; paralanguage = voice.
  • High- and low-context cultures — Hall. Forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning — Tuckman.
  • Flanders: ten categories; 1–4 indirect teacher talk, 5–7 direct, 8–9 student talk, 10 silence.
  • "The medium is the message" — McLuhan; agenda-setting — McCombs and Shaw; two-step flow — Lazarsfeld and Katz.

Final Revision Checklist

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