READING MATERIAL FOR BASIC COMMUICATION THEORY

THA 105

Functions of Communication
Communication performs diverse kinds of functions. We will look at the following
functions:
1. Social Interaction
Human interaction is possible because we can communicate. We relate with
friends, parents, colleagues, etc because we share codes that make us understand
each other. Without communication this will not be possible.
2. Business and Trade
Communication provides opportunity to transact business and engage in trade. We
are able to make known what we are offering for sales and what we want to buy.
We also negotiate the prices, mode of delivery etc. through communication
3. Exchange of Ideas and Spread of Knowledge
We express freely our ideas, opinions and feelings on issues affecting us. We also
share knowledge as we engage in discussion and write books. In classroom
situation, a teacher is able to impart knowledge into students through
communication.
4. Social-Political Development
Development is made possible through communication. Communication helps to
mobilize people to work together for their social and political development.
5. Social-Cultural Integration
Communication enables exchange of culture and values. Through music,
interaction in communities, we are able to learn one another’s cultures and blend
for harmonious co-habitation.

What is Mass Communication?

Mass Communication is a means of disseminating information or message to large,
anonymous, and scattered heterogeneous masses of receivers who may be far
removed from the message sources through the use of sophisticated equipment. In
other words, communication is the sending of message through a mass medium to
a large number of people.
Mass Communication represents the creation and sending of homogeneous
message to a large heterogeneous audience through the media. Mass
communication studies the uses and effects of the media by many as opposed to
the study of human interaction as in other communication contexts.

Stanley Baran defines Mass Communication as the process of creating shared

meaning between the mass media and their audience. Also, John Bittner defines
Mass Communication as messages communicated through a mass medium to a
large number of people. One needs to underscore the underlying fact that what is
common in every definition of mass communication anywhere in the world is that
it is communicated through a mass medium. In other words, for any message to be
regarded as being mass communicated, it must be disseminated through a mass
medium like Radio, Television, Newspaper and Magazine.
Mass Communication can also be defined as a device by which a group of people
working together transmits information to a large heterogeneous and anonymous
audience simultaneously. It is a process by which information originates from the
source to the receiver, having been thoroughly filtered and transmitted through a
channel ( Sambe,2005:29).

3.4 Features of Mass Communication

Mass Communication is distinguished from other kinds of communication by a
number of features or characteristics. They are:
1. Mass Medium
2. Presence of Gatekeepers
3. Delayed Feedback
4. Limited Sensory Channels
5. Impersonal Vs Personal Communication

Mass Medium
For a medium to be regarded as mass in communication it must have acquired fifty
million adopters (Kaye & Medoff 2005). Radio, Television, internet etc are
examples of media which are regarded as mass media because they can reach out
to no fewer than fifty million audience at a time. In mass communication,
messages reach far beyond the immediate proximity of the sender and could even
get to the uttermost part of the world.

Presence of Gatekeepers
In mass communication, sent messages do not reach the audience in raw form.
Messages are usually ‘treated’. The implication of this is that there is usually no
guarantee that what the message receivers get is exactly the message sent by the
source.
In mass media organizations, the gatekeepers are usually the reporters, sub-editors,
editors, producers, writers, etc. The concept of gatekeeper was first coined by Kurt
Lewin who describes gatekeepers as individuals or groups of persons who govern
the travels of news items in the communication channels. Gatekeepers could also
be defined as any person or formally organized group directly involved in relaying
or transferring information from one individual to another through a mass medium.
A gatekeeper can be a film producer who cuts a scene from the original script, a
network censor who deletes a scene from a prime – time show because it is
perceived as being too sexually explicit, a director who determines what segment
of film to use in a documentary, a newspaper executive who determines the topic
for an editorial, or any other individual in the processing or control of messages
disseminated through mass media (Bittner 1989:12).
In actual sense, a gatekeeper does three major functions:
1. Limiting the information through editing before dissemination.
2. Expanding the amount of information by injecting additional views or angles.
3. Reorganizing or Reinterpreting the information gathered before disseminating
it.
Delayed Feedback
Unlike in interpersonal communication where reply/feedback is made almost
instantly, the feedback in mass communication is always delayed, say for a day,
week or month. Burgoon et al 1978 cited in Folarin 1994 says “Feedback is often
limited, delayed and indirect”. Mass Communicators are usually subject to
additional feedback in form of criticism in other media, such as a television critic
writing a column in a newspaper (Baran 2004:7). In other words, feedback in mass
communication is not instant. It is mostly through letters to the editor or telephone
calls or personal calls on the media
Stanley Baran coined the term ‘delayed inferential feedback’ when he said that
television executives do not usually wait for feedbacks on what they must do not to
improve programming but only infer using the rating measured by the number of
viewers.

Limited Sensory Channels

This feature has to do with the fact that mass medium limits the number of sensory
channels upon which audience can draw. In other words, mass communication
only enables one to use his or her sense of sight and hearing since one can only see
the visual picture and hear the voice of the speaker on the broadcast station. This is
unlike in a face- to- face communication where the audience can shake hands or
hug the politicians and as such, have no limitation to the sensory channels.
Impersonal and Personal Communication
Unlike in face – to – face communication where communication is personal,
participants in mass communication are usually strangers and, hence messages are
more impersonal. As a process is dynamic, recursive, on-going, continuous and
cyclical. There is no recognizable beginning and end, neither is there a rigid
sequence of interaction. But an attempt to identify how the process begins is as
follows:
· Stimulation
This is the point at which the source sees the need to communicate. He receives
stimulus that triggers him to communicate.

· Encoding
The source processes the message he want to communicate into a form that will be
understandable to the receivers. This may be a feeling, opinion, experiment etc.
· Transmission
The message is passed across to the receiver through a chosen medium or channel.
· Reception
The receiver gets the message that is sent from the source
· Decoding
The message is processed, understood and interpreted by the receiver.
· Response
This is the reaction of the receiver to the message received, in form of feedback the
process of communication can be well understood by the models that have been
designed to explain the process. This is explained later under models of
communication.
James, Ode and Soola (1990:4 cited in Sambe 2005:3) state that the
communication process involves an action, reaction and interaction. By Action, it
refers to the initiative taken by a sender or source to share information, observation
or opinion with others. This could be done through writing, speaking, drawing or
gesturing. By Reaction, it means a response to the action taken by the sender. The
kind of response determines whether or not the receiver is willing to be a party to
the communication encounter, and sets the tone or atmosphere for it. Reaction in a
communication process may come by way of reply, rejoinder, answer,
acknowledgement, retort or defense. By Interaction, it means that communication
is the spontaneous reciprocity of messages between a sender and a receiver. It is
the stage of exchange of messages between two or more persons sharing common
experiences, codes or symbols. Interaction as a process of communication creates
an overlap of field of experience between a source and a recipient. With this, they
are tuned to each other physically, mentally or psychologically, and provide a basis
to carry on the encounter (interaction) meaningfully and successfully.
3.2 Elements of the Communication Process
We can identify about seven elements that are involved in the communication
process. They are:
1. Stimulus
This is the impulse that triggers off the communication exchange. It takes place at
the ideation stage of communication. We can also call it the reason one has for
communicating, which may be to inform, educate, entertain etc.
2. Source
This is the person who begins the communication process. He is the one triggered
by the stimulus and from him begins the communication activity. He could be
referred to as the initiator, encoder or sender. He is the initiator because he begins
the communication process. As the encoder, he packages the message in a way that
it can be communicated and as the sender when he passes across the message by
himself.
3. Message
This could be the idea, feelings, information, thought, opinion, knowledge or
experience etc. that the source/sender wants to share.
4. Medium/Channel
Medium and channel are generally used interchangeably. But here, a distinction is
made between the two. Medium could be regarded as the form adopted by the
sender of the message to get it to the receiver. It could be oral or written form. The
channel then is the pathway, route or conduit through which the message travels
between the source and the receiver e.g. the channel of radio, television,
newspaper, telephone etc.
Channel provides a link that enables the source and the receiver to communicate. It
may also be seen in terms of the five physical senses sight, sound, touch, taste and
smell-through which messages can be sent, received, understood, interpreted and
acted upon.
5. Receiver
This is the person to whom the message is sent. He is the target audience or the
recipient of the message. All the source/sender’s effort to communicate is to
inform or affect the attitude of the receiver. That is why communication must be
receiver-centred.
6. Feedback
This is the response or reaction of the receiver to the message sent.
Communication is incomplete without feedback. It confirms that the message is
well received and understood. Feedback guides the source in communication
process and helps him to know when to alter or modify his message if not properly
received. A feedback is positive when it shows that the message has been well
received and understood and it could be negative when it shows that the intended
effect has not been achieved.
7. Noise
Noise is interference that keeps a message from being understood or accurately
interpreted. It is a potent barrier to effective communication. Noise may be in
different forms:
I. Physical Noise: This comes from the environment and keeps the message from
being heard or understood. It may be from loud conversations, side-talks at
meetings, vehicular sounds, sounds from workmen’s tools etc.
II. Psychological Noise: This comes from within as a result of poor mental
attitude, depression, emotional stress or disability.
III. Physiological Noise: Results from interference with the body in form of body
discomforts, feeling of hunger, tiredness etc
IV. Linguistic Noise: This is from the source’s inability to use the language of
communication accurately and appropriately. It may be a grammatical noise
manifested in form of defects in the use of rules of grammar of a language, and
faulty sentence structure.
It may be semantic as in the wrong use of words or use of unfamiliar words,
misspelling, etc. And it could also be phonological manifested in incorrect
pronunciation.
When is a communication message said to be completed? Why is feedback in Mass
Communication said to be delayed?
3.3 Analysis of the Communication Process
When we attempt to find the meaning of the basic constituents of a communication
situation, it becomes clear that process is the key to how humans communicate.
For example, you are in a large assembly hall awaiting the arrival of a featured
speaker. You turn to the person next to you and begin to converse. In this situation
you have immediately established a dyadic ("two-way") communication
relationship, with the source and receiver interdependent. One defines the other.
You may be the immediate source whereas the other person serves as receiver or
vice versa. An interpersonal communication situation is set up between the two of
you.
Suppose you want to establish communication contact with your neighbour. You
feel the need; the message is transmitted by your central nervous system to your
speech mechanism. At that point the part of the brain responsible for speech
produces a message that expresses your purpose. You say, "Hello, my name is
Sam." Once this message has been transmitted through time and space (the only
way, so far, that we
can adequately communicate with each other), the receiver's decoder goes to work.
In a sense, this may be viewed as the reverse operation by the speech mechanism
in the brain. Thus, if there is no interference at the hearing level and none at the
decoding level, the response should be indicative that the expression "Hello, my
name is Sam" had a social contact meaning for the receiver. A typical response
might be "And I'm Susan." The miracle of communication has occurred again.
Analytically, we notice in this example that the constituents were all present in the
process-the source, the message, the channel, and the receiver. Although the source
and receiver alternated and the messages from the two communicators were
different, the channel-sound waves through the air-remained the same.
Conceivably, one or both of the communicators could have written the message in
a note rather than have spoken it.
Communication worked in this instance, but it does not work in all instances. For
example, if you do not know what you want to say, your encoding mechanism
cannot be instructed to transmit a message. A further difficulty may arise from the
way you perceive another individual in relation to yourself. Suppose you thought
that you held a higher social or economic status. Your encoder might transmit
something like "Good day, I am Dr. Manners." Suppose you wanted to lay the
groundwork for future contact. Your encoder might transmit "Hi, I'm Sam," a less
intimidating statement than the preceding one. Another problem inherent in the
communication process is the possibility that the encoder, deficient in some way,
might substitute the wrong sounds in the process of transmission. Your message
could come out, "Hello, my game is Ham." This could lead to embarrassment. But
if the receiver's decoding system were faulty, she might hear, "Hello, my what a
dame!" Or the communication channel might be overloaded with hundreds of other
people speaking simultaneously throughout the assembly hall, and Susan would
not hear you. One other possibility is that the cultural norms of Susan's society
might not permit her to respond to a stranger. Your communication would be
ineffective. Although we have discussed a fairly uncomplicated situation, the
process analysis approach to communication provides a frame of reference for
looking at the most complex communication situations, whether interpersonal or
mass.