Types of Mass Communication

In a face-to-face communication, the source or the person who started talking to you expresses himself through the message in Aramaic. The encoding process involves his motor skills. These are his vocal mechanisms, the movement of his lip and tongue, his lungs, his vocal cords and the face muscles.  But what if the source had his vocal cords removed because of throat cancer? He may be able to encode his message verbally through artificial aid. But he may have difficulty doing so, nonverbally with the use of intonation, pitch and volume. That may cause the message to be encoded inappropriately or insufficiently.

The channels through which you, as the receiver, receive his message are your five senses. The problem is you cannot understand the Aramaic language. Though there are channels through which people send information, there could be a possibility that it can’t be decoded. We cannot assure that you will be able to decode what the source sent, the same way he sent it.  This difference between your use of codes is an example of noise. (www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk, 2003)

An example of a distance communication is through the telephone. For instance, you have a job from a faraway place. But due to a lot of work and the other people waiting in line to use the pay phone, you only have a few minutes to call a friend, the receiver. You are the source here. You express your message through the mouthpiece of the telephone, “which transmits the signal through the telephone-wire channel”. The signal acquires static noise as it goes.

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This distorted signal is once again converted so it can be received at the destination or at the other end, to the receiver. Loss of information may occur, causing the message to be quite different from what you sent. The possible problem in distance communication, like in this example is, whether or not the telephone system will work properly. (Griffin,1997)

In public communication, the source utilizes machines, which transmits public messages that sent to large audiences, who may be at different places at the same time. The channels are media like TV and movies. The audiences are the receivers. (University of South Florida, 2005)

The Shannon-Weaver, though offering an efficient analysis, does not involve much consideration of the traces of the emotional and psychological drive of humans behind the messages they send. (Buddenhagen, 1994)

Generally speaking, the model is helpful in understanding the interrelatedness of the elements in a communication process.

Works Cited

• Buddenhagen, E.  (1994). Communication. Retrieved August 31, 2006, from http://www.explorit.org/science/bytes/communication.html
  Griffin, E. (1997) Information Theory of Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver.[Electronic version] A First Look at Communication Theory.  Retrieved August 31, 2006, from http://www.afirstlook.com/archive/information.cfm?source=archther
• Communication: Mass, Interpersonal, and Machine-Assisted (2005). Retrieved August 31, 2006, from University of South Florida, College of arts and sciences Website: http://www.cas.usf.edu/lis/lis6260/lectures/shannon.htm
• The Shannon-Weaver Model. (2003). Retrieved August 31, 2006, from http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/introductory/sw.html

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