3. • 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.”
4. • “Communication models are merely pictures;
they’re even distorting pictures, because they
stop or freeze an essentially dynamic
interactive or transactive process into a static
picture.”
5. • Models are metaphors. They allow us to see
one thing in terms of another.
7. 1.They should allow us to ask
questions.
2.They should clarify
complexity.
3.They should lead us to new
discoveries-most important,
according to Mortensen.
12. • Aristotle’s speaker-centered model
received perhaps its fullest
development in the hands of Roman
educator Quintilian (ca. 35-95 A.D.),
whose Institutio Oratoria was filled
with advice on the full training of a
“good” speaker-statesman.
13. • Aristotle’s model of proof. Kinnevay
also sees a model of communication
in Aristotle’s 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
16. •. 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).
17. • 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).
18.
19. • “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))”
• Essentially an adaptation of the Shannon-
Weaver model.
21. • 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.
24. • Depicts communication as a dynamic process.
Mortensen: “The helix represents the way
communication evolves in an individual from
his birth to the existing moment.”
25. • 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”
26.
27. • 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.
• 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),
29. • “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.”
31. • “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.
32. • 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.”
