Types of Communication

• Different types
1. On the basis of purpose: 1) formal, and 2) non-formal
2. On the basis of communication channels
Certain people have also classified communication into
1) verbal (written and oral) and 2) non-verbal
3. Others classify communication into 1) intra-personal, 2)
interpersonal, 3) machine-assisted interpersonal
comm., and 4) mass communication on the bases of
communication channels.
• Intra-personal comm.
Comm. That takes place within an individual. Conversation with self
and planning, thinking about schedule of study.
• Inter-personal: in this type one person (or group) is interacting with
another person (or group) without the aid of some mechanical
device.
The source and the receiver in this form of comm. are within one
another’s physical presence.
Variety of channels for comm. in this form. The receiver can see, hear,
and perhaps even smell and touch the source.
Messages are produced at a little expense, feed back is immediate,
encoding is a one-step process, decoding is also a one-step
process in interpersonal comm. Noise can either be semantic or
environmental.
• Machine-assisted inter-personal comm.
This type of comm. Combines characteristics of both the
interpersonal and mass communication situations.
In this type one or more people are communicating by
means of a mechanical device (or devices) such as
microphone, telephone, letter (pen and paper).
Characteristics:
The source and the receivers may or may not be in each
other’s immediate physical presence.
They may be separated by space and time.
encoding may take several forms in this setting.
Feedback may be immediate or delayed.
• Mass communication:
Mass comm. is the process whereby mass –
produced messages are transmitted to large,
anonymous, and heterogeneous masses of
audiences.
It refers to a process by which a complex
organization with the aid of one or more
machines produces and transmits public
messages that are directed to large,
heterogeneous, and scattered audiences.
 Communication models
• Model: A model is considered as a consciously simplified
description in graphic form of a piece of reality.
• A model is the graphical, symbolic, or verbal
representation or simplified version of a concept,
phenomenon, relationship, structure or system
Comm. Model:
• communication models help us understand the
structures and processes involved in how humans
communicate, especially with the mass media.
• it helps us understand how a newspaper, television
network, advertising agency is structured and functions;
how information flows in a society, how innovations are
adopted and rejected in a social system.
• Advantages of models:
1. They order and relate various elements and
concepts to one another,
2. They explain things by illustrating in simplified
form information that might otherwise be
complicated or ambiguous,
3. They predict outcomes or the end process of
events.
Disadvantages
Models are usually incomplete and oversimplified.
 Some communication models
• Schramme model (linear)
• Osgood and Schramme Model (circular)
• Katz and Lazarsfeld Model (two-step
model)
• Westley and MacLeans’s Model
• HUB model (Hiebert, Unguriat and Bohn
model)