Theories and Models of Communication| UGC NET

Comprehensive Notes: Theories & Models of Communication

Communication is an ongoing, dynamic process of creating and sharing meaning. Over the centuries, scholars have mapped this process through various structural models, transitioning from simple, one-way persuasive frameworks to highly complex, transactional, and ecological systems. Below is a comprehensive chronological breakdown of the major communication models.

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1. Aristotle’s Model of Communication

• Founder: Aristotle
• Date of Origin: 384–322 B.C. (Ancient Greece)
• Functions / Purpose: The earliest known basic persuasive communication model. It was primarily designed to define the art of public speaking and rhetoric.
• Key Elements & Steps:
  1. Speaker (Generation of the message)
  2. Speech (Involves five processes: Invention, Organization, Language, Memory, and Delivery)
  3. Audience (The Listener)
• Important Details: Operates as a linear, one-way process transpiring from the communicator to the receiver. It explicitly focuses on persuasion but lacks any feedback mechanism from the audience.

2. Lasswell’s Model of Communication

• Founder: Harold Lasswell
• Date of Publish: 1948
• Functions / Purpose: Developed with a social scientific background, heavily utilized in evaluating political communication, propaganda, and political symbolism.
• Key Elements & Steps: Follows a distinct sequential outline: Who (Communicator) → Says What (Message) → In Which Channel (Medium) → To Whom (Receiver) → With What Effect (Impact)
• Important Details: Like Aristotle's, it is a linear, one-way persuasion model lacking a feedback loop, but it introduces the critical dimension of "effect" or consequence of the communication.

3. Shannon and Weaver’s Model (Mathematical Model)

• Founders: Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver
• Date of Publish: 1949
• Parent Organisation / Context: Influenced by Information Theory, initially targeting electronic media and telecommunications.
• Functions / Purpose: Provided the first general mathematical model to measure the efficiency of information transmission.
• Key Elements & Steps: Information Source (Sender) → Transmitter (Encoder) → Channel → Receiver (Decoder) → Destination.
• Important Details: Introduced crucial technical communication concepts such as Entropy (uncertainty), Redundancy, Channel Capacity, and explicitly factored in Noise (physical interference in the channel).

4. Theodore Newcomb’s ABX Model

• Founder: Theodore M. Newcomb
• Parent Organisation: University of Michigan
• Publication & Date: "An Approach to the Study of Communicative Acts" (1953)
• Functions / Purpose: Shifts focus from mechanical transmission to the social purpose of communication. Aims to explain how communication maintains social equilibrium within a given system.
• Key Elements & Steps: Works in a triangular format where:
  • A: Sender
  • B: Receiver
  • X: Matter of concern / Social environment
• Important Details: The message itself is not a separate entity but is implied by directional arrows showing the sustaining of relationships between people.

5. Schramm & Osgood Circular Model

• Founders: Wilbur Schramm and Charles Osgood
• Date of Publish: 1954
• Functions / Purpose: Rectified earlier linear models by demonstrating that interpersonal communication is a continuous, circular process.
• Key Elements & Steps: Both actors simultaneously operate as Sender and Receiver. The steps continuously loop through: Encoding → Interpreting → Decoding.
• Important Details: Introduced the vital concept of "Field of Experience" (how a person's background, culture, and values dictate message interpretation). Also integrated Feedback and acknowledged Semantic Noise (misunderstandings based on meaning rather than physical static).

6. George Gerbner’s General Purpose Model

• Founder: George Gerbner
• Parent Organisation: Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania
• Date of Publish: 1956
• Functions / Purpose: Stresses the dynamic nature of communication and the human/machine factors affecting the reliability of information.
• Key Elements & Steps: An Event (E) occurs → It is perceived by a Man or Machine (M) → Filtered through Selection, Context, and Availability → Results in a perceived message (E1).
• Important Details: Focuses heavily on the Perceptual Dimension, illustrating that no single entity can perceive an entire event exactly as it happened; subjective filtering always takes place.

7. Katz’s Intermediary / Two-Step Flow Model

• Founders: Elihu Katz (building on work with Peter Lazarsfeld)
• Date of Publish: 1955 / 1957
• Functions / Purpose: Deals primarily with mass media and mass communication hierarchies.
• Key Elements & Steps: Speaker → Gatekeeper / Intermediary → Audience.
• Important Details: Highlights the power of intermediaries (editors, censors, moderators) who filter, alter, or block messages before they reach the ultimate destination.

8. Westley and MacLean’s Model

• Founders: Bruce Westley and Malcolm S. MacLean
• Date of Publish: 1957
• Functions / Purpose: A signal processing model intended to capture the complex interactive realities of mass media communication, stepping entirely away from simplistic linear patterns.

9. David Berlo’s SMCR Model

• Founder: David Kenneth Berlo
• Date of Publish: 1960
• Functions / Purpose: Expanded on Shannon & Weaver's findings to emphasize the psychological and sociological relationship between the sender and the receiver.
• Key Elements & Steps: Source → Message → Channel → Receiver (SMCR).
• Important Details: Asserts that effective communication requires a match in communication skills, attitudes, knowledge, and socio-cultural systems between the Source and the Receiver.

10. Frank Dance’s Helical Model

• Founder: Frank Dance
• Date of Publish: 1967
• Functions / Purpose: Represents communication as a highly dynamic, evolutionary, and non-linear process.
• Key Elements & Steps: Designed as a three-dimensional Helix. Communication starts at a small baseline and circles upward, expanding its boundaries over time.
• Important Details: Uniquely integrates the concept of Time, showing that past interactions inevitably dictate and shape future communications.

11. Dean C. Barnlund’s Transactional Model

• Founder: Dean C. Barnlund
• Date of Publish: 1970
• Functions / Purpose: Establishes that individuals are simultaneously engaging in sending and receiving messages.
• Important Details: Views communication as a shared conduit where information isn't just mechanically transferred but actively sustained and managed to create meaning.

12. DeVito’s Interactive Model

• Founder: Joseph A. DeVito
• Date of Publish: 2003
• Functions / Purpose: A modern representative model derived from the 1960s information-processing frameworks, updated for contemporary analysis.
• Key Elements & Steps: Amplifies older concepts by explicitly tying together eight components: Sender, Receiver, Message, Channel, Coder (Encoder/Decoder), Context, Feedback, and Noise.

13. Davis Foulger’s Ecological Model

• Founder: Davis Foulger
• Date of Publish: Introduced in 2002; restructured in 2004
• Functions / Purpose: An elaboration of Lasswell’s classic outline, looking at communication from a broad environmental/ecological perspective.
• Key Elements & Steps: Maps out the intersecting relationships between People (Creators/Consumers), Messages, Language, and Media.

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