Introduction
Here I will outline and critique a particular, very well-known model of communication developed by Shannon and Weaver (1949), as the prototypical example of a transmissive model of communication: a model which reduces communication to a process of 'transmitting information'. The underlying metaphor of communication as transmission underlies 'commonsense' everyday usage but is in many ways misleading and repays critical attention.
Shannon and Weaver's model is one which is, in John Fiske's words, 'widely accepted as one of the main seeds out of which Communication Studies has grown' (Fiske 1982: 6). Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver were not social scientists but engineers working for Bell Telephone Labs in the United States. Their goal was to ensure the maximum efficiency of telephone cables and radio waves. They developed a model of communication which was intended to assist in developing a mathematical theory of communication. Shannon and Weaver's work proved valuable for communication engineers in dealing with such issues as the capacity of various communication channels in 'bits per second'. It contributed to computer science. It led to very useful work on redundancy in language. And in making 'information' 'measurable' it gave birth to the mathematical study of 'information theory'. However, these directions are not our concern here. The problem is that some commentators have claimed that Shannon and Weaver's model has a much wider application to human communication than a purely technical one.
C & W's original model consisted of five elements:
An information source, which produces a message.
A transmitter, which encodes the message into signals
A channel, to which signals are adapted for transmission
A receiver, which 'decodes' (reconstructs) the message from the signal.
A destination, where the message arrives.
A sixth element, noise is a dysfunctional factor: any interference with the message travelling along the channel (such as 'static' on the telephone or radio) which may lead to the signal received being different from that sent.
For the telephone the channel is a wire, the signal is an electrical current in it, and the transmitter and receiver are the telephone handsets. Noise would include crackling from the wire. In conversation, my mouth is the transmitter, the signal is the sound waves, and your ear is the receiver. Noise would include any distraction you might experience as I speak.
Although in Shannon and Weaver's model a speaker and a listener would strictly be the source and the destination rather than the transmitter and the receiver, in discussions of the model the participants are commonly humanised as the sender and the receiver. My critical comments will refer less specifically to Shannon and Weaver's model than to the general transmission model which it reflects, where communication consists of a Sender passing a Message to a Receiver. So when I am discussing transmission models in general I too will refer to the participants as the Sender and the Receiver.
Shannon and Weaver's transmission model is the best-known example of the 'informational' approach to communication. Although no serious communication theorist would still accept it, it has also been the most influential model of communication which has yet been developed, and it reflects a commonsense (if misleading) understanding of what communication is. Lasswell's verbal version of this model: 'Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect ?' was reflected in subsequent research in human communication which was closely allied to behaviouristic approaches.
Levels of problems in the analysis of communication
Shannon and Weaver argued that there were three levels of problems of communication:
A The technical problem: how accurately can the message be transmitted?
B The semantic problem: how precisely is the meaning 'conveyed'?
C The effectiveness problem: how effectively does the received meaning affect behaviour?
Shannon and Weaver somewhat naively assumed that sorting out Level A problems would lead to improvements at the other levels.
Although the concept of 'noise' does make some allowance for the way in which messages may be 'distorted', this frames the issue in terms of incidental 'interference' with the sender's intentions rather than in terms of a central and purposive process of interpretation. The concept reflects Shannon and Weaver's concern with accuracy and efficiency.
Advantages of Shannon and Weaver's model
Particular models are useful for some purposes and less useful for others. Like any process of mediation a model foregrounds some features and backgrounds others. The strengths of Shannon and Weaver's model are its
simplicity,
generality, and
quantifiability.
Such advantages made this model attractive to several academic disciplines. It also drew serious academic attention to human communication and 'information theory', leading to further theory and research.
Weaknesses of the transmission model of communication
The transmission model is not merely a gross over-simplification but a dangerously misleading misrepresentation of the nature of human communication. This is particularly important since it underlies the 'commonsense' understanding of what communication is. Whilst such usage may be adequate for many everyday purposes, in the context of the study of media and communication the concept needs critical reframing.
Metaphors
Shannon and Weaver's highly mechanistic model of communication can be seen as being based on a transport metaphor. James Carey (1989: 15) notes that in the nineteenth century the movement of information was seen as basically the same as the transport of goods or people, both being described as 'communication'. Carey argues that 'it is a view of communication that derives from one of the most ancient of human dreams: the desire to increase the speed and effect of messages as they travel in space' (ibid.) Writing always had to be transported to the reader, so in written communication the transport of letters, books and newspapers supported the notion of the transport of meaning from writer to readers. As Carey notes, 'The telegraph ended the identity but did not destroy the metaphor' (ibid.).
Within the broad scope of transport I tend to see the model primarily as employing a postal metaphor. It is as if communication consists of a sender sending a packet of information to a receiver, whereas I would insist that communication is about meaning rather than information. One appalling consequence of the postal metaphor for communication is the current reference to 'delivering the curriculum' in schools, as a consequence of which teachers are treated as postal workers. But the influence of the transmission model is widespread in our daily speech when we talk of 'conveying meaning', 'getting the idea across', 'transferring information', and so on. We have to be very alert indeed to avoid falling into the clutches of such transmissive metaphors.
Michael Reddy (1979) has noted our extensive use in English of 'the conduit metaphor' in describing communicative acts. In this metaphor, 'The speaker puts ideas (objects) into words (containers) and sends them (along a conduit) to a hearer who takes the idea/objects out of the word/containers' (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 10). The assumptions the metaphor involves are that:
Language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another;
in writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts or feelings into the words;
words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others;
in listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words. (Reddy 1979: 290)
As Reddy notes, if this view of language were correct, learning would be effortless and accurate. The problem with this view of language is that learning is seen as passive, with the learner simply 'taking in' information (Bowers 1988: 42). I prefer to suggest that there is no information in language, in books or in any medium per se. If language and books do 'contain' something, this is only words rather than information. Information and meaning arises only in the process of listeners, readers or viewers actively making sense of what they hear or see. Meaning is not 'extracted', but constructed.
In relation to mass communication rather than interpersonal communication, key metaphors associated with a transmission model are those of the hypodermic needle and of the bullet. In the context of mass communication such metaphors are now largely used only as the targets of criticism by researchers in the field.
Linearity
The transmission model fixes and separates the roles of 'sender' and 'receiver'. But communication between two people involves simultaneous 'sending' and 'receiving' (not only talking, but also 'body language' and so on). In Shannon and Weaver's model the source is seen as the active decision-maker who determines the meaning of the message; the destination is the passive target.
It is a linear, one-way model, ascribing a secondary role to the 'receiver', who is seen as absorbing information. However, communication is not a one-way street. Even when we are simply listening to the radio, reading a book or watching TV we are far more interpretively active than we normally realize.
There was no provision in the original model for feedback (reaction from the receiver). Feedback enables speakers to adjust their performance to the needs and responses of their audience. A 'feedback loop' was added by later theorists, but the model remains linear.
Content and meaning
In this model, even the nature of the content seems irrelevant, whereas the subject, or the way in which the participants feel about it, can shape the process of communication. Insofar as content has any place (typically framed as 'the message'), tr
Introduction
Here I will outline and critique a particular, very well-known model of communication developed by Shannon and Weaver (1949), as the prototypical example of a transmissive model of communication: a model which reduces communication to a process of 'transmitting information'. The underlying metaphor of communication as transmission underlies 'commonsense' everyday usage but is in many ways misleading and repays critical attention.
Shannon and Weaver's model is one which is, in John Fiske's words, 'widely accepted as one of the main seeds out of which Communication Studies has grown' (Fiske 1982: 6). Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver were not social scientists but engineers working for Bell Telephone Labs in the United States. Their goal was to ensure the maximum efficiency of telephone cables and radio waves. They developed a model of communication which was intended to assist in developing a mathematical theory of communication. Shannon and Weaver's work proved valuable for communication engineers in dealing with such issues as the capacity of various communication channels in 'bits per second'. It contributed to computer science. It led to very useful work on redundancy in language. And in making 'information' 'measurable' it gave birth to the mathematical study of 'information theory'. However, these directions are not our concern here. The problem is that some commentators have claimed that Shannon and Weaver's model has a much wider application to human communication than a purely technical one.
C & W's original model consisted of five elements:
An information source, which produces a message.
A transmitter, which encodes the message into signals
A channel, to which signals are adapted for transmission
A receiver, which 'decodes' (reconstructs) the message from the signal.
A destination, where the message arrives.
A sixth element, noise is a dysfunctional factor: any interference with the message travelling along the channel (such as 'static' on the telephone or radio) which may lead to the signal received being different from that sent.
For the telephone the channel is a wire, the signal is an electrical current in it, and the transmitter and receiver are the telephone handsets. Noise would include crackling from the wire. In conversation, my mouth is the transmitter, the signal is the sound waves, and your ear is the receiver. Noise would include any distraction you might experience as I speak.
Although in Shannon and Weaver's model a speaker and a listener would strictly be the source and the destination rather than the transmitter and the receiver, in discussions of the model the participants are commonly humanised as the sender and the receiver. My critical comments will refer less specifically to Shannon and Weaver's model than to the general transmission model which it reflects, where communication consists of a Sender passing a Message to a Receiver. So when I am discussing transmission models in general I too will refer to the participants as the Sender and the Receiver.
Shannon and Weaver's transmission model is the best-known example of the 'informational' approach to communication. Although no serious communication theorist would still accept it, it has also been the most influential model of communication which has yet been developed, and it reflects a commonsense (if misleading) understanding of what communication is. Lasswell's verbal version of this model: 'Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect ?' was reflected in subsequent research in human communication which was closely allied to behaviouristic approaches.
Levels of problems in the analysis of communication
Shannon and Weaver argued that there were three levels of problems of communication:
A The technical problem: how accurately can the message be transmitted?
B The semantic problem: how precisely is the meaning 'conveyed'?
C The effectiveness problem: how effectively does the received meaning affect behaviour?
Shannon and Weaver somewhat naively assumed that sorting out Level A problems would lead to improvements at the other levels.
Although the concept of 'noise' does make some allowance for the way in which messages may be 'distorted', this frames the issue in terms of incidental 'interference' with the sender's intentions rather than in terms of a central and purposive process of interpretation. The concept reflects Shannon and Weaver's concern with accuracy and efficiency.
Advantages of Shannon and Weaver's model
Particular models are useful for some purposes and less useful for others. Like any process of mediation a model foregrounds some features and backgrounds others. The strengths of Shannon and Weaver's model are its
simplicity,
generality, and
quantifiability.
Such advantages made this model attractive to several academic disciplines. It also drew serious academic attention to human communication and 'information theory', leading to further theory and research.
Weaknesses of the transmission model of communication
The transmission model is not merely a gross over-simplification but a dangerously misleading misrepresentation of the nature of human communication. This is particularly important since it underlies the 'commonsense' understanding of what communication is. Whilst such usage may be adequate for many everyday purposes, in the context of the study of media and communication the concept needs critical reframing.
Metaphors
Shannon and Weaver's highly mechanistic model of communication can be seen as being based on a transport metaphor. James Carey (1989: 15) notes that in the nineteenth century the movement of information was seen as basically the same as the transport of goods or people, both being described as 'communication'. Carey argues that 'it is a view of communication that derives from one of the most ancient of human dreams: the desire to increase the speed and effect of messages as they travel in space' (ibid.) Writing always had to be transported to the reader, so in written communication the transport of letters, books and newspapers supported the notion of the transport of meaning from writer to readers. As Carey notes, 'The telegraph ended the identity but did not destroy the metaphor' (ibid.).
Within the broad scope of transport I tend to see the model primarily as employing a postal metaphor. It is as if communication consists of a sender sending a packet of information to a receiver, whereas I would insist that communication is about meaning rather than information. One appalling consequence of the postal metaphor for communication is the current reference to 'delivering the curriculum' in schools, as a consequence of which teachers are treated as postal workers. But the influence of the transmission model is widespread in our daily speech when we talk of 'conveying meaning', 'getting the idea across', 'transferring information', and so on. We have to be very alert indeed to avoid falling into the clutches of such transmissive metaphors.
Michael Reddy (1979) has noted our extensive use in English of 'the conduit metaphor' in describing communicative acts. In this metaphor, 'The speaker puts ideas (objects) into words (containers) and sends them (along a conduit) to a hearer who takes the idea/objects out of the word/containers' (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 10). The assumptions the metaphor involves are that:
Language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another;
in writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts or feelings into the words;
words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others;
in listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words. (Reddy 1979: 290)
As Reddy notes, if this view of language were correct, learning would be effortless and accurate. The problem with this view of language is that learning is seen as passive, with the learner simply 'taking in' information (Bowers 1988: 42). I prefer to suggest that there is no information in language, in books or in any medium per se. If language and books do 'contain' something, this is only words rather than information. Information and meaning arises only in the process of listeners, readers or viewers actively making sense of what they hear or see. Meaning is not 'extracted', but constructed.
In relation to mass communication rather than interpersonal communication, key metaphors associated with a transmission model are those of the hypodermic needle and of the bullet. In the context of mass communication such metaphors are now largely used only as the targets of criticism by researchers in the field.
Linearity
The transmission model fixes and separates the roles of 'sender' and 'receiver'. But communication between two people involves simultaneous 'sending' and 'receiving' (not only talking, but also 'body language' and so on). In Shannon and Weaver's model the source is seen as the active decision-maker who determines the meaning of the message; the destination is the passive target.
It is a linear, one-way model, ascribing a secondary role to the 'receiver', who is seen as absorbing information. However, communication is not a one-way street. Even when we are simply listening to the radio, reading a book or watching TV we are far more interpretively active than we normally realize.
There was no provision in the original model for feedback (reaction from the receiver). Feedback enables speakers to adjust their performance to the needs and responses of their audience. A 'feedback loop' was added by later theorists, but the model remains linear.
Content and meaning
In this model, even the nature of the content seems irrelevant, whereas the subject, or the way in which the participants feel about it, can shape the process of communication. Insofar as content has any place (typically framed as 'the message'), tr
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