INTRODUCTIONS TO HUMAN COMMUNICATION

Definition of Communication

Communication is a process involving an exchange of facts, viewpoints and ideas between the
sender and the receiver to achieve mutual understanding.

Communication can also be defined as the process of understanding and sharing meaning.

Process because it is an activity, an exchange or set of behaviors. It starts long before the words
begin to flow and can last long after the words stop.

Understanding the meaning of another person’s message occurs when communicators have
common meaning of words, phrases and nonverbal cues.

Meaning is shared when message has been understood.

The Communication Process

Source/sender: This is the initiator of the communication process and this person has a thought
or idea which he or she would like to share with a person, people or a group or people. Sender is
a person(s) who formulate, encode and transmit a message.

Encoding: This is the act of putting an idea or a thought into verbal or nonverbal form.

Message: This is the verbal or nonverbal form of an idea, thought or feeling that a person wishes
to communicate with another person or with a group of people. Message is the content of the
communication act.

Channel: This is the mode by which a message moves from the source to the receiver. It can be
through light waves, sound waves, audio or written. Channels are the media we use to carry
messages. Channels can be classified according to: (i) which of our senses carries or receives the
message, (ii) whether the message is being delivered verbally, nonverbally or both and (iii) the
primary means of communication we use to deliver the message ie. Whether we use face-to-face,
text messaging, mass media, computer-mediated communication.

Factors to consider when choosing means of communication

Speed: This is an important factor when the message is urgent. In such a case, telex, telephone
would be the most suitable means of communication.
Cost: The expenses incurred in using a means of communication differ from one means to
another. Eg. It is cheaper to send messages by ordinary mail than by telegram.

Confidentiality: Certain messages are intended for particular persons only. Some means can
achieve this better than others.

Distance: The geographical gap between the sender and the recipient is an important determining
the choice of a means of communication. Some means are suitable for long distances while
others are not.

Evidence: Some means provide a record of the message conveyed. This may be necessary for
purposes of future reference. All means of written communication provide evidence of message
communicated.

Reliability: This is the assurance (certainty) that the message will reach the intended recipient at
the intended time, place and in the right form. Face-to-face is the most reliable means of
communication because one can ask for clarity and get answers immediately.

Accuracy: This refers to the exactness of the message to be conveyed by a means of

communication. Written messages are generally more accurate than other means of
communication such as face-to-face communication.

Desired impression: At times it may be necessary to create or convey a certain impression upon
the recipient. Eg. A telegram would convey a sense of urgency. The use of colorful and attractive
letterheads would convey a good image of business.

The degree of formality of the message:

NB: When choosing a means of communication, all or several of the above factors may have to
be considered. The choice is however dictated by the means of communication available.

Decoding: This is assigning meaning to a verbal or nonverbal message or translation of ideas

that have been received in to the form the receiver can understand.

Receiver: This is an individual, group or organization that receives and decodes a coded
message. Receiver is the target audience of communication, who decode message symbols into
interpreted meanings.

Feedback: This is the receiver’s either verbal or nonverbal response to a message or both verbal
or nonverbal. Feedback is information returned to the message source. Feedback can come back
to us immediately or delayed. Feedback indicates whether the receiver understands,
misunderstands, encourages the source to continue or disagrees. The act of responding by which
the receiver sends feedback to the source, actually shifts the role of the receiver to that of the
source.

Getting and giving feedback is one of the most crucial parts of good communication. Like any
other activity there are specific skills that enhance feedback.

1) Listen to the complete message: Be patient because it helps one to provoke strong
opinions or radically different points of view. In this situation it is important not to
prejudge the incoming message.
2) Work at listening skills: Good listening skills demonstrate alertness and interest.
3) Judge the content, not the form of the message: Direct your attention to the message –
what is being said-and away from the distracting elements.
4) Eliminate distraction: Noise seriously impairs listening.
Characteristics of effective feedback
a) It is descriptive rather than evaluative: It is important to focus on what the individual did
rather than to translate behavior into what he or she is. For example, we might say that a
person “talked more than anyone else in the meeting” rather than that he is a “loud
mouth”
b) It is specific rather than general.
c) It is directed towards behavior that the receiver can do something about.
d) It is well-timed.
e) It involves the amount of information the receiver can use rather than the amount we
would like to give.
f) It involves sharing of information rather than giving advice: By giving information, we
leave people free to decide for themselves, in accordance to their own goals and needs.

Noise: This is anything that reduces a communications clarity and accuracy. Noise is anything
that interferes with or distorts our ability to send or receive messages.

Types of noise

Physical/ external/environmental noise: This is outside interference that prevents the receiver
from gaining the message.

Internal/ psychological noise: This is mental interference in the speaker or listener. It comes via
poor mental attitudes or emotional stress. Stress, frustration, irritation, wondering thoughts,
biases, sometimes cause us to send or receive messages ineffectively.

Physiological-impairment noise: A physical problem can prevent the effective sending and
receiving of a message. Eg. People who are deaf or blind do not have specific sensory
capabilities to receive a message in the same way as do people who can hear and see.
Cultural noise: Results from preconceived, unyielding attitudes derived from a group or society
about how members of that culture should act or in what they should or should not believe.

Linguistic noise: This refers to the communicator’s inability to use the language of
communication accurately and appropriately. Linguistic noise is divided into semantic, syntactic
and phonological noise. Semantic noise Occurs when people have different meanings for
different words. Noise would occur because of different understanding. Eg. wrong choice of
words, use of unfamiliar words or use of familiar words in unfamiliar ways. Syntactic noise:
Each language has a customary way of putting words together in a grammatical form.
Inappropriate grammatical usage can interfere with clear communication. This type of noise
occurs in faulty sentence structure, misapplication of the rule of correct language use, change of
tense in the middle of a sentence etc. Phonological noise: It occurs through poor pronunciation
of words.

Context: This is the environment or situation in which the communication process takes place.
Martine and Nakayama (2010) also noted that context is brought about by the physical and social
aspects of the situation in which communication takes place. According to DeVito (2010) there
are four aspects of communication contexts: Physical context which is the environment in which
messages are exchanged, cultural context is the lifestyle, knowledge, beliefs, values, behavior
and norms of a group of people, socio-psychological context is the relationship between the
sender and the receiver and temporal context which is appropriateness of a message in a situation
and the time of the day in which communication takes place. The four aspects of context interact
and affect each other. According to Steinberg (2006) the communication process is affected by
time, space, physical properties of the place of information exchange, roles, status and
relationship of the communicating parties. Context also affects the meaning, form and content of
a message transmitted. This, therefore, makes people communicate differently in different
contexts.

Effect: For every communication, there is some consequence. There are three types of effects.
Intellectual or cognitive effect: These are changes in your thinking. Affective effects: These are
the changes in your attitudes, values, beliefs and emotions. Psychomotor effects: These are
changes in behavior.

Why study communication?

1. It improves the way we see ourselves.

2. It is vital to the development of the whole person. Most of our knowledge comes from
communication experience. Intrapersonal communication raises our confidence.
3. It improves the way we see other people. Our interactions can be smoother and we
achieve our goals more easily as we manage the expression or impression we make on
others.
4. We can improve how others see us. People like communicating with those who can
communicate well. Communication increases what we know about human relationships.
In groups we learn how to relate with each other and about what type of communication
is appropriate for a given situation.
5. It teaches us important life skills such as; critical thinking, problem solving, decision
making, public speaking, interaction skills, relationship skills, leadership skills etc.
6. Career development: There is a positive relationship between the ability to communicate
and career success. Employers seek to hire people who know how to make
communication work. If you develop the abilities to speak so that others listen, listen
when others speak, critically evaluate what you read and hear, adopt to differences in
cultural perspectives, handle conflicts and solve problems and make sound decisions,
then you will exhibit skills valued by employees.

Forms of Human Communication

1) Intrapersonal communication

This is the process of understanding and sharing meaning with oneself. It is the basis of
all forms of communication. It occurs when we evaluate or examine the interaction that
occurs between ourselves and other people. It also includes activities like: internal
problem solving, planning for the future and understanding relationships between
ourselves and others.

Three aspects of intrapersonal communication are: self-concept, perception and

expectation.

Self-concept is the basis of intrapersonal communication because it determines how a

person sees him/herself and is oriented towards others. Self-concept also known as self-
awareness involves three factors: beliefs, values and attitudes. Beliefs are basic personal
orientation towards what is true or false, good or bad. Values are deep-seated orientations
and ideas generally based on and consistent with beliefs about right and wrong ideas and
actions. Attitudes are learned predispositions towards or against a topic, ideals that stem
from and generally are consistent with values. Beliefs, values and attitudes all influence
behavior, which either spoken opinion or physical action.

Whereas self-concept focuses internally, perception looks outward. Perception of the

outside world also is rooted in beliefs, values and attitudes.

Expectations are future-oriented messages dealing with long-term roles, sometimes called
life scripts.

Intrapersonal communication may involve different levels of communication activity:

 a) Internal disclosure involves thinking, concentrating, analysis, day dreaming, prayer,
meditation, contemplation.
b) Solo vocal communication includes speaking aloud to oneself. This may be done to
clarify thinking, to rehearse a message intended for others or simply to let off steam.
c) Solo written communication deals with writing not intended for others. For example,
entry in a diary and personal journal.

The process of intrapersonal communication

It starts with a stimulus which could be internal, originating within us or external, coming
from an outside source. The stimuli are picked up by the sensory organs and then sent to
the brain. This process is called reception.

The sense organs pick-up stimulus and send it to the central nervous system. While we
receive all stimuli directed to us, we pay attention to only a few (selective perception).

The next step is processing the stimuli. It occurs at three levels. Those levels are
cognitive (thinking), emotional (feeling) and physiological (bodily behaviors).

The process also has sef-feedback.

2) Interpersonal communication
This is the process of understanding and sharing meaning with at least one other person.
The source and the receiver are in the same immediate and physical presence of one
another. The closer the emotional link, the more personal the communication.
There are two types of interpersonal communication which are:
a) Dyadic communication: refers to communication between two people.
b) Triadic communication: refers to communication among three people.

3) Machine-assisted (interpersonal) communication

This is communication assisted by technology or machines. For example, e-mails, mobile
phones, Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) etc.
4) Group communication
This is communication among three or more people interacting to achieve a shared goal.
5) Public communication
This is the process of understanding and sharing meaning with many people. One person
is identified as the speaker and the others as listeners. Mostly the purpose of public
communication is to persuade or inform.
6) Mass communication
It is communication to a large group of people that is heterogeneous and widely scattered
in a geographical area through a mass medium such as, newspapers, magazines, books,
television, radio etc.
QUESTION:

A) Evaluate each type of human communication.

B) Discuss the characteristics of each type of human communication.

FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNICATION
1) Education and instruction
Communication provides knowledge, expertise and skills for smooth functioning of
people in the society. It creates awareness and gives opportunity to people to actively
participate in public life.
2) Information
The quality of our life will be poor without information. The more informed we are the
more powerful we become. Communication provides information about our surrounding.
3) Entertainment
To break the routine life and divert our attention from the stressful life we lead today,
entertainment is essential part of everybody’s life.
4) Discussion
5) Discussions and debates clarify different viewpoints on issues of interest to the people.
Through communication we find out reasons for varying viewpoints and impart new
ideas to others.
6) Persuasion
We communicate to persuade others to think the way we think or to change an attitude or
behavior, as well as have them understand what we are saying.
7) Cultural promotion
Communication provides an opportunity for the promotion and preservation of culture
and traditions. It makes people fulfill their creative urges.
8) Integration
It is through communication that a large number of people across countries come to know
about each other’s traditions and appreciate each other’s way of life. It develops
integration and tolerance towards each other.

Characteristics of Communication
1) Communication is human: Though other animals and creatures communicate; human
communication is a complex one.
2) Communication is a process: It involves a series of activities.
3) Communication is symbolic: Symbols are used to represent things, ideas or events in
ways that make communication possible. Symbols are arbitrary in nature, for example,
why should the letters book represent the object you read?
 4) Shared code: In order for communication to take place, participants must share the Code-
set of symbols- used to encode and decode messages.
5) Culturally linked: Communication is linked to culture. Culture is the shared beliefs,
values and practices of a group of people. A people’s culture includes language used by
group members as well as the rules and norms about how behavior can appropriately be
displayed and how it should be understood.
6) Intentional: A behavior must be intentional to be communicative. One must exhibit a
high level of consciousness or purposefulness while encoding messages.
7) Mediated: Communication requires a medium- a “vehicle” to transport or carry the
symbols

7 C’s of Effective Communication

1) Completeness: Communication should convey all facts required by the receiver(s). The
sender of the message should take into consideration the receiver’s mind set and convey
the message accordingly.
2) Conciseness: Communicate what you want to convey in the least possible words without
forgetting the other C’s of communication. Concise communication has the following
features: time saving, cost saving, underlines and highlights the main message as it
avoids using excessive and needless words, provides short and essential message in
limited words, more appealing and comprehensible and non-repetitive in nature.
3) Consideration: This implies “stepping into the shoes of others”. Effective communication
must take the audience into consideration. That is, the audience’s view points,
background, mind-set, educational level etc. Modify your words in the message to suit
the audience’s needs while making the message complete.
4) Clarity: This means emphasizing on a specific message or goal at a time, rather than
trying to achieve too much at once. Clarity of communication has the following features:
makes understanding easier, enhances meaning of message and makes use of exact,
appropriate and concrete words.
5) Concreteness: This implies being particular and clear rather than fuzzy and general.
Concrete messages have the following features: It is supported with specific facts and
figures, makes use of words that are clear and the messages are not misinterpreted.
6) Courtesy: This implies that the message should show the sender’s expression as well as
should respect the receiver. Courteous messages have the following features: they should
take into consideration the viewpoints as well as the feelings of the receiver, message
should be positive and focused at the audience, should use terms showing respect to the
receiver and use appropriate and correct language.
7) Correctness: This implies that there are no grammatical errors in the communication.

Question: Discuss the features of each and every 7 C’s to effective communication.
 Principles of Communication

1. Communication is inescapable: Communication is always occurring in human life at

various levels. For example, at intrapersonal level when you are thinking, planning,
mediating, observing, gathering information and making conclusions.
2. Communication is irreversible: You cannot take back something once it is
communicated. Even if you retract what you have said, what has been communicated
cannot be entirely erased. Traces of the effect of the communication will always remain.
3. Communication is dynamic: All elements of communication, like the setting, participants,
their knowledge and their roles affect communication as it progresses.
4. Every communication interaction has a content dimension and a relationship dimension:
The content dimension is the message or the information one wishes to communicate.
The relationship dimension is the social relationship between the communicating parties,
eg. Employer and employee or student and teacher or communication among peers like
students.
5. Communication is contextual
6. Communication is complicated: Communication is complicated in several ways:
a. It involves choice about multiple aspects of message i.e we have to make verbal
or code choices and non-verbal aspects. We also have to make channel choices.
b. Communication is also complicated because people have different perspectives of
what is communicated.

Barriers to Effective Communication

1) Language barrier
It is important for the recipient to understand the language being used by the sender in
order for communication to take place. The ability of the sender to use the appropriate
language and of the recipient to understand may depend on their background knowledge
and experience. Language could also be a barrier in case of use of foreign language,
differences in dialects and differences in regional accents.
2) Poor listening
The effectiveness of communication will depend on the willingness of the recipient to
listen keenly. Listening requires careful attention and concentration. It may however be
the task of the sender of the message to attempt to gain the attention of the listener
through his or her choice of words and expressions among others.
3) Negative attitude
Attitude refers to the feelings of communication parties towards each other. It is
important that there exists a mutual feeling of trust and respect between the parties
concerned in order to avoid bias. If there is mistrust or prejudice, then there may be
deliberate or unintentional misunderstanding of the message involved.
4) Poor timing
 For communication to be effective, the message must be sent and received at the
appropriate time. For example, A message that is sent when one is in a hurry may not be
properly delivered or received. Similarly, a telephone call made at 2.00 am may not be
appreciated.
5) Wrong medium
The means of communication used must be appropriate for the information being
conveyed otherwise a wrong choice of medium will be a barrier to effective
communication.
6) Emotional responses
Emotional responses such as those resulting from anger or excitement may lead to
distortion of messages.
7) Noise
8) Unfamiliar non-verbal signals
These may be a barrier to effective communication because they may be misinterpreted
due to differences in cultures and age-groups among others.

THE SELF AND PERCEPTION

The self in human communication
Who you are and how you see yourself influence not only the way you communicate, but
also how you respond to the communication of others.

Self-Concept
Self-concept is your image of who you are. It is how you perceive yourself; your feelings
and thoughts about your strengths and weaknesses, your abilities and limitations. Self-
concept develops from the images that others have of you, the comparisons you make
between yourself and others, the teachings of your culture, and your own thoughts,
behaviors and evaluations.

Self-Awareness
This is knowledge of who you are, your traits, strengths and limitations, emotions,
behaviors and individuality- is the basic to all communication. You can achieve self-
awareness by examining the several aspects of yourself as they might appear to others as
well as to yourself. One tool that is commonly used for this examination is called the
Johari Window, a metaphoric division of yourself into four areas or selves: open, blind,
hidden and unknown. To increase self-awareness, analyze yourself, listen to others to see
yourself as they do, actively seek information from others about yourself, see yourself
from different perspectives and increase your open self.

Self-esteem
This is the value you place on yourself. It is your self-assessment, evaluation of your
ability and worth and indicates how well you like and value yourself. People with high
 self-esteem think very highly of themselves whereas people with low self-esteem view
themselves negatively. The basic idea behind building self-esteem is that when you feel
good about yourself- about who you are and what you are capable of doing- you will
perform better.
Self-esteem has five dimensions which affect your feelings about yourself and your
communication with others:
 Competence (your beliefs about your ability to be effective)
 Worthiness (your beliefs about the degree to which others value you)
 Cognition (your beliefs about your character and personality)
 Affect (How you evaluate yourself and the feelings generated by your evaluation)
 Stability and change.
To enhance self-esteem, attack self-destructive beliefs, seek out nourishing others, work
on projects that will result in success and secure affirmation.

Self-disclosure
Self-disclosure is a type of communication in which you reveal information about
yourself that you normally keep hidden. Self-disclosure is more likely to occur when the
potential discloser (1) feeling competent and is sociable; (2) comes from a culture that
encourages self-disclosure; (3) is a woman; (4) is talking to supportive listeners who also
disclose; and (5) talks about impersonal topics and reveals positive information.
The rewards of self-disclosure include increased self-knowledge, the ability to cope with
difficult situations and guilt, communication efficiency and chances for meaningful
relationships. The dangers for self-disclosure include personal and social rejection and
professional or material losses.
Before self-disclosure, consider the cultural rules operating, the motivation for the self-
disclosure, the possible burdens you might impose on your listener or on yourself, the
appropriateness of the self-disclosure and the disclosures of the other person.
When listening to disclosure, take into consideration the cultural rules governing the
communication situation, try to understand what the discloser is feeling, support the
discloser, refrain from criticism and evaluation and keep the disclosure confidential.
When you don’t want to disclose, be firm, be indirect and change the topic, or assertively
state your unwillingness to disclose.

QUESTION: Explore the relationship between technology and self-concept.

PERCEPTION

Perception is your way of understanding the world. Perception is the process by which you
become aware of objects, events and especially people through your senses of: sight, smell, taste,
touch and sound. Perception can also be defined as the process of selecting, organizing and
subjectively interpreting sensory data in a way that enables us to make sense of our world
Gamble, and Gamble, 2010).

Perception is an active and not a passive process. Your perceptions results from what exists in
the outside world and from your own experiences, desires, needs and wants, loves and hatreds.
Among the reasons why perception is so important in communication is that it influences your
communication choices.

Perception is a continuous series of process that blend into one another. Perception has five
stages: (1) You sense, you pick up some kind of stimulation; (2) you organize the stimuli into
some way; (3) you interpret and evaluate what you perceive; (4) You store your perception into
memory; and (5) you retrieve it when needed.

Devito, J. A. (2015). Human Communication: The Basic Course. England: Pearson Education
Limited.
HISTORY OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION

Stages of human communication

The stages of human communication are associated with the development of speaking, writing, printing and mass media
(newspapers, magazines, radio, film and television). The most recent stage is the Information Age, the outcome of the
development of computer technology.

As we discus each of these stages you should be aware that each successive communication development did not replace the one
that preceded it. Rather, it gradually built on what was already there.

Our ancestors first learned to communicate be means of signals and we still use them today (for example, waving our hand to
greet someone). The speech and language were added, followed by writing and mass communication in the addition to the rapid
spreading use of computers.

Human communication begun some half a million years ago with small groups of prehistoric hunters who lived in caves. These
people did not walk upright and were physically incapable of producing speech. They could produce vocal sounds but their voice
boxes had not developed sufficiently to generate and control the intricate sounds of speech. Scientists assume that their
communication was similar to animal communication. Pre-historic people received and exchanged information about the
environment (for instance, the presence of danger or food) through their senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. They
communicated with each other through gestures, posture and facial expressions and expressed a limited number of such sounds
such as grunts and cries.

Over time, people begun to move out of caves and settle in small communities. The need to communicate played an increasingly
important role in their ability to participate in community life.

The age of speech and language

Scientists estimate that speech and language originated some forty thousand years ago, among people who had evolved to
physically resemble human beings today. One view about the orig of speech is that it was a divine gift. Another view assumes
that, as the human speech organs developed, recognizable words gradually developed form the basic sounds emitted by the pre-
historic people, and speech and language evolved.
Speech gave people the ability to think and plan, to hunt and defend themselves more effectively, to invent ways to preserve food
and keep warm in winter and to learn to cultivate land. It was during this era that people also expressed their creativity in the
form of art- the cave paintings that have been discovered in different parts of the world. The ability to use language made
possible the transition from a hunting way of life to an agricultural way of life.

As agricultural areas grew and developed over the centuries, people needed to find ways to record such matters as boundaries and
land ownership. As their towns grew in size and commercial activities and trading increased, they also needed to keep records of
buying and selling and other transactions. It was needs such as theses that prompted the invention of writing in about 3,500 BC.

The age of writing

The cave paintings produced by the pre-historic people attempted to record ideas in graphic (in form of pictures). They clearly
depicted animals, people and hunting scenes. The cave paintings provided people with a way of recording customs, traditions and
ceremonies for succeeding generations. The significant point about writing is that it enabled people to standardize and share the
meaning of signs (such as grammar) to which everyone conforms.

The earliest forms of writing were cuneiform (an ancient system of writing with wedge-shaped characters in clay tablets) and
hieroglyphics (an ancient Egyptian writing using picture symbols carved into stone). Although the invention of writing allowed
people to record and store information, the problem with hieroglyphics and cuneiform was the documents were difficult to
transport.

The first advances towards a more portable writing medium were made by the Egyptians, who invented the papyrus- making
process in about 2500 BC. Later, animal skins and parchment (a kind of paper made from animal skins) replaced papyrus (a
kind of paper made from water plants) and paper made from wood pulp was finally invented by the Chinese in about 100 AD.

The importance of light and portable media is that it provided the conditions for far-reaching social and cultural changes. It was
no longer necessary to rely on human memory to retain information and to pass the culture (the language, traditions, art, rituals
and lifestyles) of a society to following generations. In Egypt for example, papyrus was used to record the affairs of the
government and to write down legal, literary, scientific, medical and religious ideas.

Libraries were opened and schools were established to teach clerks, known as scribes, to write. It took many centuries, however,
before a large number of people could read and write. In fact, it was not until the invention of printing in the 15 th century that
literacy started to spread.

The age of print

The printing process is traditionally attributed to the invention of movable metal type by Johannes Gutenberg of Germany in
1450. Prior to this time, manuscripts and books were produced by craftsmen and monks who copied and re-copied the by hand- a
slow laborious and expensive process. Gutenberg’s invention revolutionized book production. He developed a method that
allowed the printer to manufacture individual letters cast in metal from a mold. These letters were used to compose complete
pages of text which were held together, inked and then pressed on paper to produce copies. Gutenberg’s printing techniques
spread rapidly throughout the world and by the beginning of the 16th century, thousands of books were being produced.

As techniques were developed from more rapid printing, improved roads and postal systems made distribution easier, newspapers
also begun to flourish and their circulation increased rapidly. While the early newspapers of the 17 th and 18th centuries were
aimed at the educated elite, the newspapers of the 19 th and 20th centuries were designed to appeal to the growing numbers of the
literate artisans and merchants in the rapidly developing urban-industrial cities of England, Europe and America.

The second significance of printing is that with the spread of books, more and more people learned to read and write and their
thinking was freed from the restrictions of church and government. New political and religious ideas begun to circulate in the
society and throughout Europe and America, revolutionary movements emerged, making use of print to disseminate their ideas to
increasingly receptive publics. With the spread of newspapers, public opinion became something that political leaders had to take
into account.

Age of the electronic mass media

After the appearance and acceptance of the mass press, changes in the means of human communication occurred rapidly.
Scientific discoveries and technological inventions during the 19 th century (such as electricity and the telegraph) laid the
foundations that would eventually lead to the electronic mass media.

Towards the end of the 19th century, people were able to send telegrams and talk to one another on the telephone. Marconi
invented the first “wireless telegraph” which permitted signals to be transmitted without the use of electric wires.

The information age