Communication is the process whereby information is being exchanged between different parties.
Communication is the process whereby information is being exchanged between different parties. Mediums such as radio and telephone help facilitate the exchange of information. The process or transmission model of communication assumes that a receiver will interpret a message as intended by the sender. This form of communication model has its own strengths and weaknesses. While it can to a certain extent represent communication practices, it fails to consider the relationship between communication, context and cultural literacy.
The process or transmission model describes a model of communication in terms of sender, message and receiver. Based on this model, communication is said to have taken place when a sender, sends a message to a receiver and the receiver, receives the message. Thus this model of communication is also known as the Sender-Message-Receiver (SMR) Model. Schirato and Yell (1996:4) explains the SMR Model using the postal service. First, there will be a parcel which then needs to be addressed, mailed and delivered. Lastly, the same parcel will be received. It is important to understand that in the concept of the SMR Model, the receiver is assumed to interpret the message as intended by the sender.
The SMR model is one that is simple and easy to interpret. It is a general concept that can be used to represent communication practices using technologies like radio and telephone. For radio, the SMR model can be applied in a sense that the broadcasters as senders would plan programs which are the messages to be aired for listeners who would be the receivers. For telephone, a mother who is the sender might want to call up her domestic helper (maid) who is the receiver to remind her to watch over her son which is the message. The SMR model might seen to make sense in the two cases as mentioned, however, it fails to consider other factors brought up by Schirato and Yell (1996:5) such as the relationship between communication and culture, the idea that meaning and practices are context based and cultural literacy.
Communication is a process whereby information is being exchanged by different parties. This same information that is being exchanged by different parties can bring about different interpretations depending on a person's cultural background such as gender, age, class, religion, etc. Today, different forms of mass media like the radio have audiences not just from the local community but from different countries. As Thompson (1997:33) mentions, media messages are appropriated in different ways by different individuals in different contexts. This means that the original intention of a radio message will change since it is open to different forms of ...
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Communication is a process whereby information is being exchanged by different parties. This same information that is being exchanged by different parties can bring about different interpretations depending on a person's cultural background such as gender, age, class, religion, etc. Today, different forms of mass media like the radio have audiences not just from the local community but from different countries. As Thompson (1997:33) mentions, media messages are appropriated in different ways by different individuals in different contexts. This means that the original intention of a radio message will change since it is open to different forms of interpretation from different radio listeners around the world. According to Schirato and Yell (1996:8), the markers of communication will be read and evaluated differently by different people, depending on the cultural context they bring to communication. Therefore, we can see that the relationship between communication and culture is important which is lacking in the process model.
The SMR model does not allow for context which as Schirato and Yell (1996:5) argue is one of the points missing from the process school model of communication. Contexts are often understood as a simple amalgam of cultural features such as meaning systems (body language codes, religious codes), material conditions (urban, rural) and participants or members (class, gender or age) as noted by Schirato and Yell (1996:16). Take a simple telephone call for example where two sisters would talk on the phone everyday. Based on the study done on Whiddy Island, Betteridge (1997:589,579) mentions that women make use of the telephone to maintain relationships. An Islander said that she calls her sister everyday to find out how she is and what she is doing. The two sisters are able to talk to each other everyday because the contexts of their phone calls have similar agendas thus they are able to understand each other. Another example from Betteridge (1997:590,594) to illustrate the importance of context is from the use to the community telephone in Whiddy Island. An islander would have to go to the post -office in order to make a phone call. The content of their phone calls may be limited by the presence of others like the post mistress and her family. They were not able to "talk too long, laugh too loudly, being angry or weep in the presence of others". With all these limitations, the context of a phone call may then change. Schirato and Yell (1996:9) states "...different contexts determine what happens in communication practices". Therefore, it can be seen that context is another important factor in determining the true success of a message being sent from the sender to the receiver.
Cultural literacy as defined by Schirato and Yell (1996:1) is the ability to understand different cultural practices such as its values, beliefs and customs and having the ability to negotiate those under different cultural contexts. The telephone call example used earlier about the mother and the domestic helper, how the message was interpreted by the maid will be dependent on her cultural literacy. The maid might have gotten the impression that her employer thought she wasn't doing her job and be offended. However, if the maid understood the anxieties of a mother, she might interpret the message as her employer being concerned for her son. Radio broadcasters also often employ cultural literacy when they produce programs. Potts (1989:26) sites the example of the link between radio and youth culture during the 1950s. Radio broadcasters understood the youth culture as one that loved rock music and so they injected this into their programs to attract them. This shows that the media when creating media messages, take into consideration "everyday forms of culture and communication and reproduce it in a selective and creative way" (Thompson 1997:30). Thus it can be seen that to effectively bring across a message, it is important to employ the concept of cultural literacy.
In conclusion, the SMR model does not represent a model for effective communication. It merely states communication as passing a message from the sender to the receiver and as long as the receiver gets the intended message then communication is said to be complete. However, as shown from the examples, communication is not such a simple process and there are other factors that prohibit the receiver of a message to understand it as intended by the sender. Factors such as cultural differences, cultural context and cultural literacy need to be considered to communicate effective. When all the factors are fulfilled then can a message between a sender and receiver be conveyed successfully.
Bibliography
Betteridge, J. (1997) "Answering back: the telephone, modernity and everyday life", Media Culture and Society, Vol 19, No 4, SAGE, London Oaks and New Delhi: 585-603.
Potts, J. (1989) "Radio and Society", Radio in Australia, New South Wales University Press, Sydney: 10-26.
Shirato, T. and Yell, S. (1996) "Communication and Culture", Communication and Cultural Literacy: An Introduction, Allan and Unwin, St Leonards, Sydney: 1-21.
Thompson, J. (1997) "Mass Communication and Mass Culture", The Media Studies Reader, Edward Arnold Ltd, London: 28-41.
