Chapter 5: Listening
5.3 Improving Listening Competences
Learning Objectives
- Identify strategies for improving listening competence at each stage of the listening process.
- Summarize the characteristics of active listening.
- Apply critical-listening skills in interpersonal, educational, and mediated contexts.
- Practice empathetic listening skills.
- Discuss ways to improve listening competence in relational, professional, and cultural contexts.
Many people admit that they could stand to improve their listening skills. This section will help us do that. In this section, we will learn strategies for developing and improving competence at each stage of the listening process. We will also define active listening and the behaviors that go along with it. Looking back to the types of listening discussed earlier, we will learn specific strategies for sharpening our critical and empathetic listening skills. In keeping with our focus on integrative learning, we will also apply the skills we have learned in academic, professional, and relational contexts and explore how culture and gender affect listening.
Listening Competence at Each Stage of the Listening Process
We can develop competence within each stage of the listening process, as the following list indicates:[1]
- To improve listening at the receiving stage,prepare yourself to listen,
-
- discern between intentional messages and noise,
- concentrate on stimuli most relevant to your listening purpose(s) or goal(s),
- be mindful of the selection and attention process as much as possible,
- pay attention to turn-taking signals so you can follow the conversational flow, and
- avoid interrupting someone while they are speaking in order to maintain your ability to receive stimuli and listen.
- To improve listening at the interpreting stage,
- identify main points and supporting points;
- use contextual clues from the person or environment to discern additional meaning;
- be aware of how a relational, cultural, or situational context can influence meaning;
- be aware of the different meanings of silence; and
- note differences in tone of voice and other paralinguistic cues that influence meaning.
- To improve listening at the recalling stage,
-
- use multiple sensory channels to decode messages and make more complete memories;
- repeat, rephrase, and reorganize information to fit your cognitive preferences; and
- use mnemonic devices as a gimmick to help with recall.
- To improve listening at the evaluating stage,
-
- separate facts, inferences, and judgments;
- be familiar with and able to identify persuasive strategies and fallacies of reasoning;
- assess the credibility of the speaker and the message; and
- be aware of your own biases and how your perceptual filters can create barriers to effective listening.
- To improve listening at the responding stage,
-
- ask appropriate clarifying and follow-up questions and paraphrase information to check understanding,
- give feedback that is relevant to the speaker’s purpose/motivation for speaking,
- adapt your response to the speaker and the context, and
- do not let the preparation and rehearsal of your response diminish earlier stages of listening.
Active Listening
refers to the process of pairing outwardly visible positive listening behaviors with positive cognitive listening practices. Active listening can help address many of the environmental, physical, cognitive, and personal barriers to effective listening that we discussed earlier. The behaviors associated with active listening can also enhance informational, critical, and empathetic listening.
Active Listening Can Help Overcome Barriers to Effective Listening
Being an active listener starts before you actually start receiving a message. Active listeners make strategic choices and take action in order to set up ideal listening conditions. Physical and environmental noises can often be managed by moving locations or by manipulating the lighting, temperature, or furniture. When possible, avoid important listening activities during times of distracting psychological or physiological noise. For example, we often know when we’re going to be hungry, full, more awake, less awake, more anxious, or less anxious, and advance planning can alleviate the presence of these barriers. For college students, who often have some flexibility in their class schedules, knowing when you best listen can help you make strategic choices regarding what class to take when. And student options are increasing, as some colleges are offering classes in the overnight hours to accommodate working students and students who are just “night owls.”[2] Of course, we don’t always have control over our schedule, in which case we will need to utilize other effective listening strategies that we will learn more about later in this chapter.
In terms of cognitive barriers to effective listening, we can prime ourselves to listen by analyzing a listening situation before it begins. For example, you could ask yourself the following questions:
- “What are my goals for listening to this message?”
- “How does this message relate to me / affect my life?”
- “What listening type and style are most appropriate for this message?”
As we learned earlier, the difference between speech and thought processing rate means listeners’ level of attention varies while receiving a message. Effective listeners must work to maintain focus as much as possible and refocus when attention shifts or fades.[3] One way to do this is to find the motivation to listen. If you can identify intrinsic and or extrinsic motivations for listening to a particular message, then you will be more likely to remember the information presented. Ask yourself how a message could impact your life, your career, your intellect, or your relationships. This can help overcome our tendency toward selective attention. As senders of messages, we can help listeners by making the relevance of what we’re saying clear and offering well-organized messages that are tailored for our listeners. We will learn much more about establishing relevance, organizing a message, and gaining the attention of an audience in public speaking contexts later in the book.
Given that we can process more words per minute than people can speak, we can engage in internal dialogue, making good use of our intrapersonal communication, to become a better listener. Three possibilities for internal dialogue include covert coaching, self-reinforcement, and covert questioning; explanations and examples of each follow:[4]
- Covert coaching involves sending yourself messages containing advice about better listening, such as “You’re getting distracted by things you have to do after work. Just focus on what your supervisor is saying now.”
- Self-reinforcement involves sending yourself affirmative and positive messages: “You’re being a good active listener. This will help you do well on the next exam.”
- Covert questioning involves asking yourself questions about the content in ways that focus your attention and reinforce the material: “What is the main idea from that PowerPoint slide?” “Why is he talking about his brother in front of our neighbors?”
Internal dialogue is a more structured way to engage in active listening, but we can use more general approaches as well. I suggest that students occupy the “extra” channels in their mind with thoughts that are related to the primary message being received instead of thoughts that are unrelated. We can use those channels to resort, rephrase, and repeat what a speaker says. When we resort, we can help mentally repair disorganized messages. When we rephrase, we can put messages into our own words in ways that better fit our cognitive preferences. When we repeat, we can help messages transfer from short-term to long-term memory.
Other tools can help with concentration and memory. refers to the process of intentionally separating out intrusive or irrelevant thoughts that may distract you from listening.[5] This requires that we monitor our concentration and attention and be prepared to let thoughts that aren’t related to a speaker’s message pass through our minds without us giving them much attention. are techniques that can aid in information recall.[6] Starting in ancient Greece and Rome, educators used these devices to help people remember information. They work by imposing order and organization on information. Three main mnemonic devices are acronyms, rhymes, and visualization, and examples of each follow:
- Acronyms. HOMES—to help remember the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior).
- Rhyme. “Righty tighty, lefty loosey”—to remember which way most light bulbs, screws, and other coupling devices turn to make them go in or out.
- Visualization. Imagine seeing a glass of port wine (which is red) and the red navigation light on a boat to help remember that the red light on a boat is always on the port side, which will also help you remember that the blue light must be on the starboard side.
Active Listening Behaviors
From the suggestions discussed previously, you can see that we can prepare for active listening in advance and engage in certain cognitive strategies to help us listen better. We also engage in active listening behaviors as we receive and process messages.
Eye contact is a key sign of active listening. Speakers usually interpret a listener’s eye contact as a signal of attentiveness. While a lack of eye contact may indicate inattentiveness, it can also signal cognitive processing. When we look away to process new information, we usually do it unconsciously. Be aware, however, that your conversational partner may interpret this as not listening. If you really do need to take a moment to think about something, you could indicate that to the other person by saying, “That’s new information to me. Give me just a second to think through it.” We already learned the role that back-channel cues play in listening. An occasional head nod and “uh-huh” signal that you are paying attention. However, when we give these cues as a form of “autopilot” listening, others can usually tell that we are pseudo-listening, and whether they call us on it or not, that impression could lead to negative judgments.
A more direct way to indicate active listening is to reference previous statements made by the speaker. Norms of politeness usually call on us to reference a past statement or connect to the speaker’s current thought before starting a conversational turn. Being able to summarize what someone said to ensure that the topic has been satisfactorily covered and understood or being able to segue in such a way that validates what the previous speaker said helps regulate conversational flow. Asking probing questions is another way to directly indicate listening and to keep a conversation going, since they encourage and invite a person to speak more. You can also ask questions that seek clarification and not just elaboration. Speakers should present complex information at a slower speaking rate than familiar information, but many will not. Remember that your nonverbal feedback can be useful for a speaker, as it signals that you are listening but also whether or not you understand. If a speaker fails to read your nonverbal feedback, you may need to follow up with verbal communication in the form of paraphrased messages and clarifying questions.
As active listeners, we want to be excited and engaged, but don’t let excitement manifest itself in interruptions. Being an active listener means knowing when to maintain our role as listener and resist the urge to take a conversational turn. Research shows that people with higher social status are more likely to interrupt others, so keep this in mind and be prepared for it if you are speaking to a high-status person, or try to resist it if you are the high-status person in an interaction.Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 197.
Note-taking can also indicate active listening. Translating information through writing into our own cognitive structures and schemata allows us to better interpret and assimilate information. Of course, note-taking isn’t always a viable option. It would be fairly awkward to take notes during a first date or a casual exchange between new coworkers. But in some situations where we wouldn’t normally consider taking notes, a little awkwardness might be worth it for the sake of understanding and recalling the information. For example, many people don’t think about taking notes when getting information from their doctor or banker. I actually invite students to take notes during informal meetings because I think they sometimes don’t think about it or don’t think it’s appropriate. But many people would rather someone jot down notes instead of having to respond to follow-up questions on information that was already clearly conveyed. To help facilitate your note-taking, you might say something like “Do you mind if I jot down some notes? This seems important.”
In summary, active listening is exhibited through verbal and nonverbal cues, including steady eye contact with the speaker; smiling; slightly raised eyebrows; upright posture; body position that is leaned in toward the speaker; nonverbal back-channel cues such as head nods; verbal back-channel cues such as “OK,” “mmhum,” or “oh”; and a lack of distracting mannerisms like doodling or fidgeting.[7]
“Getting Competent”
Listening in the Classroom
The following statistic illustrates the importance of listening in academic contexts: four hundred first-year students were given a listening test before they started classes. At the end of that year, 49 percent of the students with low scores were on academic probation, while only 4 percent of those who scored high were.[8] Listening effectively isn’t something that just happens; it takes work on the part of students and teachers. One of the most difficult challenges for teachers is eliciting good listening behaviors from their students, and the method of instruction teachers use affects how a student will listen and learn.[9] Given that there are different learning styles, we know that to be effective, teachers may have to find some way to appeal to each learning style. Although teachers often make this attempt, it is also not realistic or practical to think that this practice can be used all the time. Therefore, students should also think of ways they can improve their listening competence, because listening is an active process that we can exert some control over. The following tips will help you listen more effectively in the classroom:
- Be prepared to process challenging messages. You can use the internal dialogue strategy we discussed earlier to “mentally repair” messages that you receive to make them more listenable.[10] For example, you might say, “It seems like we’ve moved on to a different main point now. See if you can pull out the subpoints to help stay on track.”
- Act like a good listener. While I’m not advocating that you engage in pseudo-listening, engaging in active listening behaviors can help you listen better when you are having difficulty concentrating or finding motivation to listen. Make eye contact with the instructor and give appropriate nonverbal feedback. Students often take notes only when directed to by the instructor or when there is an explicit reason to do so (e.g., to recall information for an exam or some other purpose). Since you never know what information you may want to recall later, take notes even when it’s not required that you do so. As a caveat, however, do not try to transcribe everything your instructor says or includes on a PowerPoint, because you will likely miss information related to main ideas that is more important than minor details. Instead, listen for main ideas.
- Figure out from where the instructor most frequently speaks and sit close to that area. Being able to make eye contact with an instructor facilitates listening, increases rapport, allows students to benefit more from immediacy behaviors, and minimizes distractions since the instructor is the primary stimulus within the student’s field of vision.
- Figure out your preferred learning style and adopt listening strategies that complement it.
- Let your instructor know when you don’t understand something. Instead of giving a quizzical look that says “What?” or pretending you know what’s going on, let your instructor know when you don’t understand something. Instead of asking the instructor to simply repeat something, ask her or him to rephrase it or provide an example. When you ask questions, ask specific clarifying questions that request a definition, an explanation, or an elaboration.
- What are some listening challenges that you face in the classroom? What can you do to overcome them?
- Take a Learning Styles Inventory survey to determine what your primary learning style. Do some research to identify specific listening/studying strategies that work well for your learning style.
Becoming a Better Critical Listener
Critical listening involves evaluating the credibility, completeness, and worth of a speaker’s message. Some listening scholars note that critical listening represents the deepest level of listening.[11] Critical listening is also important in a democracy that values free speech. The US Constitution grants US citizens the right to free speech, and many people duly protect that right for you and me. Since people can say just about anything they want, we are surrounded by countless messages that vary tremendously in terms of their value, degree of ethics, accuracy, and quality. Therefore it falls on us to responsibly and critically evaluate the messages we receive. Some messages are produced by people who are intentionally misleading, ill informed, or motivated by the potential for personal gain, but such messages can be received as honest, credible, or altruistic even though they aren’t. Being able to critically evaluate messages helps us have more control over and awareness of the influence such people may have on us. In order to critically evaluate messages, we must enhance our critical-listening skills.
Some critical-listening skills include distinguishing between facts and inferences, evaluating supporting evidence, discovering your own biases, and listening beyond the message. Chapter 3 “Verbal Communication” noted that part of being an ethical communicator is being accountable for what we say by distinguishing between facts and inferences.[12] This is an ideal that is not always met in practice, so a critical listener should also make these distinctions, since the speaker may not. Since facts are widely agreed-on conclusions, they can be verified as such through some extra research. Take care in your research to note the context from which the fact emerged, as speakers may take a statistic or quote out of context, distorting its meaning. Inferences are not as easy to evaluate, because they are based on unverifiable thoughts of a speaker or on speculation. Inferences are usually based at least partially on something that is known, so it is possible to evaluate whether an inference was made carefully or not. In this sense, you may evaluate an inference based on several known facts as more credible than an inference based on one fact and more speculation. Asking a question like “What led you to think this?” is a good way to get information needed to evaluate the strength of an inference.
Distinguishing among facts and inferences and evaluating the credibility of supporting material are critical-listening skills that also require good informational-listening skills. In more formal speaking situations, speakers may cite published or publicly available sources to support their messages. When speakers verbally cite their sources, you can use the credibility of the source to help evaluate the credibility of the speaker’s message. For example, a national newspaper would likely be more credible on a major national event than a tabloid magazine or an anonymous blog. In regular interactions, people also have sources for their information but are not as likely to note them within their message. Asking questions like “Where’d you hear that?” or “How do you know that?” can help get information needed to make critical evaluations.
Discovering your own biases can help you recognize when they interfere with your ability to fully process a message. Unfortunately, most people aren’t asked to critically reflect on their identities and their perspectives unless they are in college, and even people who were once critically reflective in college or elsewhere may no longer be so. Biases are also difficult to discover, because we don’t see them as biases; we see them as normal or “the way things are.” Asking yourself “What led you to think this?” and “How do you know that?” can be a good start toward acknowledging your biases. We will also learn more about self-reflection and critical thinking in Chapter 8 “Culture and Communication“.
Last, to be a better critical listener, think beyond the message. A good critical listener asks the following questions: What is being said and what is not being said? In whose interests are these claims being made? Whose voices/ideas are included and excluded? These questions take into account that speakers intentionally and unintentionally slant, edit, or twist messages to make them fit particular perspectives or for personal gain. Also ask yourself questions like “What are the speaker’s goals?” You can also rephrase that question and direct it toward the speaker, asking them, “What is your goal in this interaction?” When you feel yourself nearing an evaluation or conclusion, pause and ask yourself what influenced you. Although we like to think that we are most often persuaded through logical evidence and reasoning, we are susceptible to persuasive shortcuts that rely on the credibility or likability of a speaker or on our emotions rather than the strength of his or her evidence.[13] So keep a check on your emotional involvement to be aware of how it may be influencing your evaluation. Also, be aware that how likable, attractive, or friendly you think a person is may also lead you to more positively evaluate his or her messages.
Other Tips to Help You Become a Better Critical Listener
- Ask questions to help get more information and increase your critical awareness when you get answers like “Because that’s the way things are,” “It’s always been like that,” “I don’t know; I just don’t like it,” “Everyone believes that,” or “It’s just natural/normal.” These are not really answers that are useful in your critical evaluation and may be an indication that speakers don’t really know why they reached the conclusion they did or that they reached it without much critical thinking on their part.
- Be especially critical of speakers who set up “either/or” options, because they artificially limit an issue or situation to two options when there are always more. Also be aware of people who overgeneralize, especially when those generalizations are based on stereotypical or prejudiced views. For example, the world is not just Republican or Democrat, male or female, pro-life or pro-choice, or Christian or atheist.
- Evaluate the speaker’s message instead of his or her appearance, personality, or other characteristics. Unless someone’s appearance, personality, or behavior is relevant to an interaction, direct your criticism to the message.
- Be aware that critical evaluation isn’t always quick or easy. Sometimes you may have to withhold judgment because your evaluation will take more time. Also keep in mind your evaluation may not be final, and you should be open to critical reflection and possible revision later.
- Avoid mind reading, which is assuming you know what the other person is going to say or that you know why they reached the conclusion they did. This leads to jumping to conclusions, which shortcuts the critical evaluation process.
“Getting Critical”
Critical Listening and Political Spin
In just the past twenty years, the rise of political fact checking occurred as a result of the increasingly sophisticated rhetoric of politicians and their representatives.[14] As political campaigns began to adopt communication strategies employed by advertising agencies and public relations firms, their messages became more ambiguous, unclear, and sometimes outright misleading. While there are numerous political fact-checking sources now to which citizens can turn for an analysis of political messages, it is important that we are able to use our own critical-listening skills to see through some of the political spin that now characterizes politics in the United States.
Since we get most of our political messages through the media rather than directly from a politician, the media is a logical place to turn for guidance on fact checking. Unfortunately, the media is often manipulated by political communication strategies as well.[15] Sometimes media outlets transmit messages even though a critical evaluation of the message shows that it lacks credibility, completeness, or worth. Journalists who engage in political fact checking have been criticized for putting their subjective viewpoints into what is supposed to be objective news coverage. These journalists have fought back against what they call the norm of “false equivalence.” One view of journalism sees the reporter as an objective conveyer of political messages. This could be described as the “We report; you decide” brand of journalism. Other reporters see themselves as “truth seekers.” In this sense, the journalists engage in some critical listening and evaluation on the part of the citizen, who may not have the time or ability to do so.
Michael Dobbs, who started the political fact-checking program at the Washington Post, says, “Fairness is preserved not by treating all sides of an argument equally, but through an independent, open-minded approach to the evidence.”[16] He also notes that outright lies are much less common in politics than are exaggeration, spin, and insinuation. This fact puts much of political discourse into an ethical gray area that can be especially difficult for even professional fact checkers to evaluate. Instead of simple “true/false” categories, fact checkers like the Washington Post issue evaluations such as “Half true, mostly true, half-flip, or full-flop” to political statements. Although we all don’t have the time and resources to fact check all the political statements we hear, it may be worth employing some of the strategies used by these professional fact checkers on issues that are very important to us or have major implications for others. Some fact-checking resources include PolitiFact, FactCheck (Annenberg Public Policy Center), and The Fact Checker (Washington Post blog by Glen Kessler). The caution here for any critical listener is to be aware of our tendency to gravitate toward messages with which we agree and avoid or automatically reject messages with which we disagree. In short, it’s often easier for us to critically evaluate the messages of politicians with whom we disagree and uncritically accept messages from those with whom we agree. Exploring the fact-check websites above can help expose ourselves to critical evaluation that we might not otherwise encounter.
- One school of thought in journalism says it’s up to the reporters to convey information as it is presented and then up to the viewer/reader to evaluate the message. The other school of thought says that the reporter should investigate and evaluate claims made by those on all sides of an issue equally and share their findings with viewers/readers. Which approach do you think is better and why?
- In the lead-up to the war in Iraq, journalists and news outlets did not critically evaluate claims from the Bush administration that there was clear evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Many now cite this as an instance of failed fact checking that had global repercussions. Visit one of the fact-checking resources mentioned previously to find other examples of fact checking that exposed manipulated messages. To enhance your critical thinking, find one example that critiques a viewpoint, politician, or political party that you typically agree with and one that you disagree with. Discuss what you learned from the examples you found.
Becoming a Better Empathetic Listener
A prominent scholar of empathetic listening describes it this way: “Empathetic listening is to be respectful of the dignity of others. Empathetic listening is a caring, a love of the wisdom to be found in others whoever they may be.”[17] This quote conveys that empathetic listening is more philosophical than the other types of listening. It requires that we are open to subjectivity and that we engage in it because we genuinely see it as worthwhile.
Combining active and empathetic listening leads to active-empathetic listening. During active-empathetic listening a listener becomes actively and emotionally involved in an interaction in such a way that it is conscious on the part of the listener and perceived by the speaker.[18] To be a better empathetic listener, we need to suspend or at least attempt to suppress our judgment of the other person or their message so we can fully attend to both. Paraphrasing is an important part of empathetic listening, because it helps us put the other person’s words into our frame of experience without making it about us. In addition, speaking the words of someone else in our own way can help evoke within us the feelings that the other person felt while saying them.[19] Active-empathetic listening is more than echoing back verbal messages. We can also engage in , which refers to a listener’s replication of the nonverbal signals of a speaker.[20] Therapists, for example, are often taught to adopt a posture and tone similar to their patients in order to build rapport and project empathy.
Paraphrasing and questioning are useful techniques for empathetic listening because they allow us to respond to a speaker without taking “the floor,” or the attention, away for long. Specifically, questions that ask for elaboration act as “verbal door openers,” and inviting someone to speak more and then validating their speech through active listening cues can help a person feel “listened to.”[21] I’ve found that paraphrasing and asking questions are also useful when we feel tempted to share our own stories and experiences rather than maintaining our listening role. These questions aren’t intended to solicit more information, so we can guide or direct the speaker toward a specific course of action. Although it is easier for us to slip into an advisory mode—saying things like “Well if I were you, I would…”—we have to resist the temptation to give unsolicited advice.
Empathetic listening can be worthwhile, but it also brings challenges. In terms of costs, empathetic listening can use up time and effort. Since this type of listening can’t be contained within a proscribed time frame, it may be especially difficult for time-oriented listeners.[22] Empathetic listening can also be a test of our endurance, as its orientation toward and focus on supporting the other requires the processing and integration of much verbal and nonverbal information. Because of this potential strain, it’s important to know your limits as an empathetic listener. While listening can be therapeutic, it is not appropriate for people without training and preparation to try to serve as a therapist. Some people have chronic issues that necessitate professional listening for the purposes of evaluation, diagnosis, and therapy. Lending an ear is different from diagnosing and treating. If you have a friend who is exhibiting signs of a more serious issue that needs attention, listen to the extent that you feel comfortable and then be prepared to provide referrals to other resources that have training to help. To face these challenges, good empathetic listeners typically have a generally positive self-concept and self-esteem, are nonverbally sensitive and expressive, and are comfortable with embracing another person’s subjectivity and refraining from too much analytic thought.
Becoming a Better Contextual Listener
Active, critical, and empathetic listening skills can be helpful in a variety of contexts. Understanding the role that listening plays in professional, relational, cultural, and gendered contexts can help us more competently apply these skills. Whether we are listening to or evaluating messages from a supervisor, parent, or intercultural conversational partner, we have much to gain or lose based on our ability to apply listening skills and knowledge in various contexts.
Listening in Professional Contexts
Listening and organizational-communication scholars note that listening is one of the most neglected aspects of organizational-communication research.[23] Aside from a lack of research, a study also found that business schools lack curriculum that includes instruction and/or training in communication skills like listening in their master of business administration (MBA) programs.[24] This lack of a focus on listening persists, even though we know that more effective listening skills have been shown to enhance sales performance and that managers who exhibit good listening skills help create open communication climates that can lead to increased feelings of supportiveness, motivation, and productivity.[25] Specifically, empathetic listening and active listening can play key roles in organizational communication. Managers are wise to enhance their empathetic listening skills, as being able to empathize with employees contributes to a positive communication climate. Active listening among organizational members also promotes involvement and increases motivation, which leads to more cohesion and enhances the communication climate.
Organizational scholars have examined various communication climates specific to listening. refers to characteristics and norms of an organization and its members that contribute to expectations for and perceptions about listening.[26] Positive listening environments are perceived to be more employee centered, which can improve job satisfaction and cohesion. But how do we create such environments?
Positive listening environments are facilitated by the breaking down of barriers to concentration, the reduction of noise, the creation of a shared reality (through shared language, such as similar jargon or a shared vision statement), intentional spaces that promote listening, official opportunities that promote listening, training in listening for all employees, and leaders who model good listening practices and praise others who are successful listeners.[27] Policies and practices that support listening must go hand in hand. After all, what does an “open-door” policy mean if it is not coupled with actions that demonstrate the sincerity of the policy?
“Getting Real”
Becoming a “Listening Leader”
Dr. Rick Bommelje has popularized the concept of the “listening leader.”[28] As a listening coach, he offers training and resources to help people in various career paths increase their listening competence. For people who are very committed to increasing their listening skills, the International Listening Association has now endorsed a program to become a Certified Listening Professional (CLP), which entails advanced independent study, close work with a listening mentor, and the completion of a written exam.[29] There are also training programs to help with empathetic listening that are offered through the Compassionate Listening Project.[30] These programs evidence the growing focus on the importance of listening in all professional contexts.
Scholarly research has consistently shown that listening ability is a key part of leadership in professional contexts and competence in listening aids in decision making. A survey sent to hundreds of companies in the United States found that poor listening skills create problems at all levels of an organizational hierarchy, ranging from entry-level positions to CEOs.[31] Leaders such as managers, team coaches, department heads, and executives must be versatile in terms of listening type and style in order to adapt to the diverse listening needs of employees, clients/customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders.
Even if we don’t have the time or money to invest in one of these professional-listening training programs, we can draw inspiration from the goal of becoming a listening leader. By reading this book, you are already taking an important step toward improving a variety of communication competencies, including listening, and you can always take it upon yourself to further your study and increase your skills in a particular area to better prepare yourself to create positive communication climates and listening environments. You can also use these skills to make yourself a more desirable employee.
- Make a list of the behaviors that you think a listening leader would exhibit. Which of these do you think you do well? Which do you need to work on?
- What do you think has contributed to the perceived shortage of listening skills in professional contexts?
- Given your personal career goals, what listening skills do you think you will need to possess and employ in order to be successful?
Listening in Relational Contexts
Listening plays a central role in establishing and maintaining our relationships.[32] Without some listening competence, we wouldn’t be able to engage in the self-disclosure process, which is essential for the establishment of relationships. Newly acquainted people get to know each other through increasingly personal and reciprocal disclosures of personal information. In order to reciprocate a conversational partner’s disclosure, we must process it through listening. Once relationships are formed, listening to others provides a psychological reward, through the simple act of recognition, that helps maintain our relationships. Listening to our relational partners and being listened to in return is part of the give-and-take of any interpersonal relationship. Our thoughts and experiences “back up” inside of us, and getting them out helps us maintain a positive balance.[33] So something as routine and seemingly pointless as listening to our romantic partner debrief the events of his or her day or our roommate recount his or her weekend back home shows that we are taking an interest in their lives and are willing to put our own needs and concerns aside for a moment to attend to their needs. Listening also closely ties to conflict, as a lack of listening often plays a large role in creating conflict, while effective listening helps us resolve it.
Listening has relational implications throughout our lives, too. Parents who engage in competent listening behaviors with their children from a very young age make their children feel worthwhile and appreciated, which affects their development in terms of personality and character.[34]
A lack of listening leads to feelings of loneliness, which results in lower self-esteem and higher degrees of anxiety. In fact, by the age of four or five years old, the empathy and recognition shown by the presence or lack of listening has molded children’s personalities in noticeable ways.[35] Children who have been listened to grow up expecting that others will be available and receptive to them. These children are therefore more likely to interact confidently with teachers, parents, and peers in ways that help develop communication competence that will be built on throughout their lives. Children who have not been listened to may come to expect that others will not want to listen to them, which leads to a lack of opportunities to practice, develop, and hone foundational communication skills. Fortunately for the more-listened-to children and unfortunately for the less-listened-to children, these early experiences become predispositions that don’t change much as the children get older and may actually reinforce themselves and become stronger.
Listening and Culture
Some cultures place more importance on listening than other cultures. In general, collectivistic cultures tend to value listening more than individualistic cultures that are more speaker oriented. The value placed on verbal and nonverbal meaning also varies by culture and influences how we communicate and listen. A style is one in which much of the meaning generated within an interaction comes from the verbal communication used rather than nonverbal or contextual cues. Conversely, much of the meaning generated by a style comes from nonverbal and contextual cues.[36] For example, US Americans of European descent generally use a low-context communication style, while people in East Asian and Latin American cultures use a high-context communication style.
Contextual communication styles affect listening in many ways. Cultures with a high-context orientation generally use less verbal communication and value silence as a form of communication, which requires listeners to pay close attention to nonverbal signals and consider contextual influences on a message. Cultures with a low-context orientation must use more verbal communication and provide explicit details, since listeners aren’t expected to derive meaning from the context. Note that people from low-context cultures may feel frustrated by the ambiguity of speakers from high-context cultures, while speakers from high-context cultures may feel overwhelmed or even insulted by the level of detail used by low-context communicators. Cultures with a low-context communication style also tend to have a monochronic orientation toward time, while high-context cultures have a polychronic time orientation, which also affects listening.
As Chapter 8 “Culture and Communication” discusses, cultures that favor a structured and commodified orientation toward time are said to be monochronic, while cultures that favor a more flexible orientation are polychronic. Monochronic cultures like the United States value time and action-oriented listening styles, especially in professional contexts, because time is seen as a commodity that is scarce and must be managed.[37] This is evidenced by leaders in businesses and organizations who often request “executive summaries” that only focus on the most relevant information and who use statements like “Get to the point.” Polychronic cultures value people and content-oriented listening styles, which makes sense when we consider that polychronic cultures also tend to be more collectivistic and use a high-context communication style. In collectivistic cultures, indirect communication is preferred in cases where direct communication would be considered a threat to the other person’s face (desired public image). For example, flatly turning down a business offer would be too direct, so a person might reply with a “maybe” instead of a “no.” The person making the proposal, however, would be able to draw on contextual clues that they implicitly learned through socialization to interpret the “maybe” as a “no.”
Listening and Gender
Research on gender and listening has produced mixed results. As we’ve already learned, much of the research on gender differences and communication has been influenced by gender stereotypes and falsely connected to biological differences. More recent research has found that people communicate in ways that conform to gender stereotypes in some situations and not in others, which shows that our communication is more influenced by societal expectations than by innate or gendered “hard-wiring.” For example, through socialization, men are generally discouraged from expressing emotions in public. A woman sharing an emotional experience with a man may perceive the man’s lack of emotional reaction as a sign of inattentiveness, especially if he typically shows more emotion during private interactions. The man, however, may be listening but withholding nonverbal expressiveness because of social norms. He may not realize that withholding those expressions could be seen as a lack of empathetic or active listening. Researchers also dispelled the belief that men interrupt more than women do, finding that men and women interrupt each other with similar frequency in cross-gender encounters.[38] So men may interrupt each other more in same-gender interactions as a conscious or subconscious attempt to establish dominance because such behaviors are expected, as men are generally socialized to be more competitive than women. However, this type of competitive interrupting isn’t as present in cross-gender interactions because the contexts have shifted.
Key Takeaways
- You can improve listening competence at the receiving stage by preparing yourself to listen and distinguishing between intentional messages and noise; at the interpreting stage by identifying main points and supporting points and taking multiple contexts into consideration; at the recalling stage by creating memories using multiple senses and repeating, rephrasing, and reorganizing messages to fit cognitive preferences; at the evaluating stage by separating facts from inferences and assessing the credibility of the speaker’s message; and at the responding stage by asking appropriate questions, offering paraphrased messages, and adapting your response to the speaker and the situation.
- Active listening is the process of pairing outwardly visible positive listening behaviors with positive cognitive listening practices and is characterized by mentally preparing yourself to listen, working to maintain focus on concentration, using appropriate verbal and nonverbal back-channel cues to signal attentiveness, and engaging in strategies like note taking and mentally reorganizing information to help with recall.
- In order to apply critical-listening skills in multiple contexts, we must be able to distinguish between facts and inferences, evaluate a speaker’s supporting evidence, discover our own biases, and think beyond the message.
- In order to practice empathetic listening skills, we must be able to support others’ subjective experience; temporarily set aside our own needs to focus on the other person; encourage elaboration through active listening and questioning; avoid the temptation to tell our own stories and/or give advice; effectively mirror the nonverbal communication of others; and acknowledge our limits as empathetic listeners.
- Getting integrated: Different listening strategies may need to be applied in different listening contexts.
- In professional contexts, listening is considered a necessary skill, but most people do not receive explicit instruction in listening. Members of an organization should consciously create a listening environment that promotes and rewards competent listening behaviors.
- In relational contexts, listening plays a central role in initiating relationships, as listening is required for mutual self-disclosure, and in maintaining relationships, as listening to our relational partners provides a psychological reward in the form of recognition. When people aren’t or don’t feel listened to, they may experience feelings of isolation or loneliness that can have negative effects throughout their lives.
- In cultural contexts, high- or low-context communication styles, monochronic or polychronic orientations toward time, and individualistic or collectivistic cultural values affect listening preferences and behaviors.
- Research regarding listening preferences and behaviors of men and women has been contradictory. While some differences in listening exist, many of them are based more on societal expectations for how men and women should listen rather than biological differences.
Exercises
- Keep a “listening log” for part of your day. Note times when you feel like you exhibited competent listening behaviors and note times when listening became challenging. Analyze the log based on what you have learned in this section. Which positive listening skills helped you listen? What strategies could you apply to your listening challenges to improve your listening competence?
- Apply the strategies for effective critical listening to a political message (a search for “political speech” or “partisan speech” on YouTube should provide you with many options). As you analyze the speech, make sure to distinguish between facts and inferences, evaluate a speaker’s supporting evidence, discuss how your own biases may influence your evaluation, and think beyond the message.
- Discuss and analyze the listening environment of a place you have worked or an organization with which you were involved. Overall, was it positive or negative? What were the norms and expectations for effective listening that contributed to the listening environment? Who helped set the tone for the listening environment?
- Alice Ridge, “A Perspective of Listening Skills,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 5–6. ↵
- Greg Toppo, “Colleges Start Offering ‘Midnight Classes’ for Offbeat Needs,” USA Today, October 27, 2011, accessed July 13, 2012, http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011–10–26/college-midnight-classes/50937996/1. ↵
- Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley, “A Listening Taxonomy,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 19. ↵
- Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 193. ↵
- Steven McCornack, Reflect and Relate: An Introduction to Interpersonal Communication (Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2007), 192. ↵
- Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 190. ↵
- Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 207. ↵
- Martha S. Conaway, “Listening: Learning Tool and Retention Agent,” in Improving Reading and Study Skills, eds. Anne S. Algier and Keith W. Algier (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1982). ↵
- Melissa L. Beall et al., “State of the Context: Listening in Education,” The International Journal of Listening 22 (2008): 124. ↵
- Donald L. Rubin, “Listenability = Oral-Based Discourse + Considerateness,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 277. ↵
- James J. Floyd, Listening, a Practical Approach (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1985), 39–40. ↵
- S. I. Hayakawa and Alan R. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 5th ed. (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1990), 22–32. ↵
- Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, “The Effects of Involvement on Responses to Argument Quantity and Quality: Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46, no. 1 (1984): 69–81. ↵
- Michael Dobbs, “The Rise of Political Fact-Checking,” New America Foundation (2012): 1. ↵
- Michael Dobbs, “The Rise of Political Fact-Checking,” New America Foundation (2012): 1. ↵
- Michael Dobbs, “The Rise of Political Fact-Checking,” New America Foundation (2012): 3. ↵
- Tom Bruneau, “Empathy and Listening,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 194. ↵
- Graham D. Bodie, “The Active-Empathetic Listening Scale (AELS): Conceptualization and Evidence of Validity within the Interpersonal Domain,” Communication Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2011): 278. ↵
- Graham D. Bodie, “The Active-Empathetic Listening Scale (AELS): Conceptualization and Evidence of Validity within the Interpersonal Domain,” Communication Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2011): 278. ↵
- Tom Bruneau, “Empathy and Listening,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 188. ↵
- Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 205. ↵
- Tom Bruneau, “Empathy and Listening,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 195. ↵
- Jan Flynn, Tuula-Riitta Valikoski, and Jennie Grau, “Listening in the Business Context: Reviewing the State of Research,” The International Journal of Listening 22 (2008): 143. ↵
- Ron Alsop, Wall Street Journal-Eastern Edition 240, no. 49 (2002): R4. ↵
- Jan Flynn, Tuula-Riitta Valikoski, and Jennie Grau, “Listening in the Business Context: Reviewing the State of Research,” The International Journal of Listening 22 (2008): 144–46. ↵
- Judi Brownell, “Listening Environment: A Perspective,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 243. ↵
- Judi Brownell, “Listening Environment: A Perspective,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 245–54. ↵
- Listen-Coach.com, Dr. Rick Listen-Coach, accessed July 13, 2012, http://www.listen-coach.com. ↵
- “CLP Training Program,” International Listening Assocation, accessed July 13, 2012, http://www.listen.org/CLPFAQs. ↵
- “Training,” The Compassionate Listening Project, accessed July 13, 2012, http://www.compassionatelistening.org/trainings. ↵
- Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 178. ↵
- Richard Nelson-Jones, Human Relationship Skills, 4th ed. (East Sussex: Routledge, 2006), 37–38. ↵
- Richard Nelson-Jones, Human Relationship Skills, 4th ed. (East Sussex: Routledge, 2006), 34–35. ↵
- Michael P. Nichols, The Lost Art of Listening (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1995), 25. ↵
- Michael P. Nichols, The Lost Art of Listening (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1995), 32. ↵
- Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester, Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication across Cultures, 5th ed. (Boston, MA: Pearson Education, 2006), 110–14. ↵
- Steven McCornack, Reflect and Relate: An Introduction to Interpersonal Communication (Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2007), 205. ↵
- Kathryn Dindia, “The Effect of Sex of Subject and Sex of Partner on Interruptions,” Human Communication Research 13, no. 3 (1987): 345–71. ↵
Learning Objectives
- Explain how communication in defined in the field of Communication Studies.
- Compare and contrast the three models of communication.
- Identify and explain the elements of the transactional model of communication
Communication is a complex process, and it is difficult to determine when a communication encounter starts and ends. Models of communication simplify the process by providing a representation of the various aspects of a communication encounter. Some models explain communication in more detail than others, but even the most complex model still doesn’t fully recreate what we experience in a communication encounter. Models still serve a valuable purpose for students and scholars of communication because they allow us to see parts the process of communication, define communication, and analyze communication with specific language (i.e., concepts). When you become aware of how communication functions, you can think more deliberately about your communication encounters, which can help you prepare for future communication and learn from your past. The three models of communication we will discuss are the linear, interaction, and transactional models.
We will begin by discussing the definition of communication, and then review each of the models that have been used to study this phenomenon. In the last section, we will review the central elements of the transactional model of communication.
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
To begin, there is no agreed upon definition of the word “communication” in the field of Communication Studies. In fact, various scholars have attempted to examine the term and generally found that there are a vast array of different approaches to understanding the term. In one of the most exhaustive examination of the types of definitions created by various academics, Dance (1970) examined 95 unique definitions and broke them down into fifteen different types of definitions. While all of these definitions may exist, not all of them are equally complete for our purposes. As we will see in our review of the models of communication, the most comprehensive and relevant model to date is the transactional model. This model conceptualizes communication as a relational process of created meaning. Thus, we will use the following definition of communication throughout this book: Communication is the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes.
MODELS OF COMMUNICATION
At the most basic level, the three models of communication (linear, interactional, and transactional) can be represented by the following figure:
The linear model originated in the 1940s, the interactional in the 1950s, and the transactional in the 1970s. The original linear model of communication remains influential but theorists have long noted its limitations: the assumptions that listeners are passive, that only one message is transmitted at a time, that communication has a beginning and an end. In fact, a source could transmit a confusing or nonsensical message, rather than a meaningful one, and the linear model would work just as well; there is no provision for gauging whether a message has been understood by its receivers. Neither is the context of a communication situation taken into account. Nevertheless, the linear model introduces helpful concepts and terms that are the basis for understanding, as we will see later, the interactional and transactional models of communication.
LINEAR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Inspired by postwar research at Bell Laboratories on telephone transmissions, Shannon and Weaver (1949) developed the “mathematical model” of human communication. In this model, successful sending and receiving of a message is a function of the channel’s capacity to handle signal degradation caused by static noise on the line. When applied in general to human communication, “noise” can be physical (background noises that make the message harder to hear), physiological (impairments such as hardness of hearing), semantic (difficulties in understanding choices of words), and psychological (predispositions and prejudices that affect how the message is interpreted).
A decade after Shannon and Weaver, Berlo (1960) adapted the concepts into the now-familiar SMCR (source, message, channel, receiver) model. Berlo’s adaptation was “tremendously influential” in offering a more flexible and “humanized conception of Claude Shannon’s model” that facilitated its application to oral, written, and electronic communication (Rogers, 2001).
Yet, as we will see below in the descriptions of the interactional and transactional models, subsequent theorists have attempted to show how communication is better understood as circular rather than linear, how listeners are also active participants in communication, how multiple messages may be sent simultaneously, and how context and culture impact understanding.
Computer-Mediated Communication
When the first computers were created around World War II and the first e-mails exchanged in the early 1960s, we took the first steps toward a future filled with computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004). Those early steps turned into huge strides in the late 1980s and early 1990s when personal computers started becoming regular features in offices, classrooms, and homes. I remember getting our first home computer, a Tandy from Radio Shack, in the early 1990s and then getting our first Internet connection at home in about 1995. I set up my first e-mail account in 1996 and remember how novel and exciting it was to send and receive e-mails. I wasn’t imagining a time when I would get dozens of e-mails a day, much less be able to check them on my cell phone! Many of you reading this book probably can’t remember a time without CMC. If that’s the case, then you’re what some scholars have called “digital natives.” When you take a moment to think about how, over the past twenty years, CMC has changed the way we teach and learn, communicate at work, stay in touch with friends, initiate romantic relationships, search for jobs, manage our money, get our news, and participate in our democracy, it really is amazing to think that all that used to take place without computers. But the increasing use of CMC has also raised some questions and concerns, even among those of you who are digital natives. Almost half of the students in my latest communication research class wanted to do their final research projects on something related to social media. Many of them were interested in studying the effects of CMC on our personal lives and relationships. This desire to study and question CMC may stem from an anxiety that people have about the seeming loss or devaluing of face-to-face (FtF) communication. Aside from concerns about the digital cocoons that many of us find ourselves in, CMC has also raised concerns about privacy, cyberbullying, and lack of civility in online interactions. We will continue to explore many of these issues in the “Getting Plugged In” feature box included in each chapter, but the following questions will help you begin to see the influence that CMC has in your daily communication.
- In a typical day, what types of CMC do you use?
- What are some ways that CMC reduces stress in your life? What are some ways that CMC increases stress in your life? Overall, do you think CMC adds to or reduces your stress more?
- Do you think we, as a society, have less value for FtF communication than we used to? Why or why not?
INTERACTION MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Only a few years after Shannon and Weaver published their one-way linear model, Schramm (1954) proposed an alternate model that portrayed communication as a two-way interaction. He was the first to incorporate feedback—verbal and nonverbal—into a model of communication. The other important innovations in Schramm’s interactive model, which we have adapted in Figure 1.4 "Interactional Model of Communication" below, were the additions of the communication context (the specific setting that may affect meaning) and of “fields of experience” (the frames of reference and the cultures that each participant brings to the communication).
With Schramm’s model, communication moves from a linear to a circular process in which participants are both senders and receivers of messages. Yet the model portrays communication like a tennis match: one participant serves up a message and the other participants then makes a return. Each waits, in turn, passively for the other. Thus, communication goes back and forth as one person (on the left of Figure 1.3) initiates a message and waits until the other (on the right) responds. But if you think about times when you have engaged in conversation, you will recognize how the other person is simultaneously sending messages—often nonverbally—while you are talking. Unlike a tennis match, you do not wait passively until the “ball is in your court” before acting communicatively. To demonstrate the simultaneity of communication, we move next to a transactional model.
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Perhaps the first model to portray communication as a simultaneous transaction is attributed to Barnlund (1970). Later theorists have developed this idea of simultaneity, which is illustrated in Figure 1.4 "Transactional Model for Communication" below. As you can see, messages and feedback are being exchanged at the same time between communicators. And because they are engaged together in the transaction, their fields of experience overlap.
This expanded view of how communication functions can help us to better understand how individuals communicate with one another in a variety of context and relationships (e.g., interpersonal, public speaking, small groups, organizations). Communication scholars view communication as more than sending messages like computers, as we don’t neatly alternate between the roles of sender and receiver as an interaction unfolds. We also don't consciously decide to stop communicating when communicating with others in person.
In summary, the transactional model of communication is the most complete model to date. This model characterizes communication as something that participants do with one another, not to one another. Communication is a process that is ongoing, ever-changing, and meaning making occurs through verbal and nonverbal symbols. The central elements of the transactional model of communication are reviewed below. While these elements are listed as separate concepts, they overlap in practice. These elements, and the transactional nature of communication, will be woven throughout the remaining of this book and our discussions, so this is only a brief introduction of each element for now.
Elements of the transactional model of communication
1. Participants
The transaction model of communication does not conceptualize individuals as either sender or receivers, but simultaneously senders and receivers. As participants in the communication interaction, we bring our past experiences, expectations, skills, knowledge and cultural contexts with us to our interactions. All of these inform our communication experiences with others.
2. Channel
The channel is the means through which the message is communicated and received. When interacting with others in person, we use verbal and nonverbal channels of communication. As a general rule of thumb, the more complex or unfamiliar the others are with the message, the more channels of communicate we should use. Thus, in addition to our verbal and nonverbal channels, we may need to use written and visual channels as well.
In our modern world, we are also able to communicate with individuals that are not occupying the same physical space as we are. A mediated channel is the use some kind of technology (e.g., text message, Instagram, TicTok). In today’s technologically advanced world, we are increasingly spending more and more time communicating with each other using mediated channels of communication.
3. Message
When communicating with others, a primary goal is usually to create shared understanding. Notice the caveat of “usually”, as there are times that individuals are purposefully vague or deceptive. But when we are attempting to create shared meaning, the content and organization of our messages are important considerations. Content has to do with the words we choose to use, the level of detail we provide, and the thoroughness of our messaging. Organization represents how well we connect the content in a meaningful way.
4. Feedback
Feedback refers to a response to a message. Feedback can be verbal (e.g. ask/answer a question), nonverbal (e.g., nodding, frown on one’s face) and the apparent lack of feedback (i.e., not responding). However, by not responding to someone, you are providing feedback.
5. Noise
Noise refers to those things that get in the way of the participants staying present in the communication interaction, and falls into three categories: external, psychological and physiological. External noise is “stuff” in the environment that distracts us for attending to the others we are communicating with. This may be a loud noise, strong odor, poorly lite room, etcetera. Psychological noise occurs when we are thinking about things other than the message being created at that time. We may be preoccupied by thinking about an upcoming exam, or a difficult conversation we are going to have later in the day. Additionally, psychological noise can occur when we are thinking about what was just said, and not keeping pace with what's being added to that message (e.g., interested by the example shared but now missing the next point). Lastly, physiological noise refers to things having to do with our bodies that keep us from staying present in the interaction. Perhaps we have a horrible migraine, or we are extremely tired. These physiological states can inhibit our ability to attend to message creation with the others.
6. Context
A final element of the transactional model of communication important to review is context. Context includes the physical setting (e.g., stadium seating in a large lecture hall) location of the interaction (e.g., at the park) as well as social and cultural contexts.
As we grow up, we learn the pragmatic rules of how to communicate with others using our same language system. For example, in the United States, we learn pragmatic rules like don’t interrupt people, greet people when they greet you, and so on. Our interactions with others (e.g., parents and teachers) often explicitly convey these rules, however, these social expectations (contexts) are also learned via our interactions with generalized others. What is important to recognize is that these pragmatic rules can inform our interpretation of a message and ‘appropriate’ types of feedback. For example, we tend to learn that when at the grocery store in the checkout line, the clerk's question “How is your day going?” is a social greeting as opposed to a request for detailed disclosure. Conversely, when a best friend asks us the same question, we interpret the message differently, and share our true feelings about the day. This is one example of how social context informs our creation of shared meaning with others.
Cultural context(s) are also an important piece of the transactional nature of communication. Cultures includes various aspects of identities such as race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and ability. We all have multiple cultural identities that influence our communication with others. Some people, especially those with identities that have been historically marginalized, are regularly aware of how their cultural identities influence their communication and influence how others communicate with them. Conversely, people with identities that are dominant or in the majority may rarely, if ever, think about the role their cultural identities play in their communication. We will discuss this in more detail in our chapter on culture and communication.
Summary
To review, communication will be defined in this book as the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes. Communication was originally conceptualized as a linear process. The linear model viewed communication as a thing, like an information packet, that was sent from one person to another. From this view, communication would be defined as sending and receiving messages. The interaction model viewed communication as a process in which a message is sent and then followed by a reaction (feedback), which is then followed by another reaction, and so on. From this view, communication is defined as producing meaning with alternating roles between being a sender and a receiver.
The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create shared meaning with one another. Unlike the interaction model, which suggests that people alternate positions as sender and receiver, the transactional model suggests that we are simultaneously senders and receivers. In this model, we don’t just communicate to exchange messages; we communicate to create relationships, understand one another, shape our self-concepts, and engage with others in dialogue to create communities. In short, we don’t communicate about our realities; communication helps to construct our realities.
To fully understand the transactional nature of communication, scholars have identified several elements of this process (e.g., participants, message, context, feedback, noise, channel) that help us think about communication as a complex process of meaning-making with others.
Key Takeaways
- Communication models are not complex enough to truly capture all that takes place in a communication encounter, but they can help us examine the various steps in the process in order to better understand our communication and the communication of others.
- The Linear model of communication describes communication as a one-way process in which a sender encodes a message and transmits it through a channel to a receiver who decodes it. This model is too simple to characterize communication, but was an important seminal work that more robust models have expanded.
- The interaction model of communication describes communication as a two-way process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts. This model captures the interactive aspects of communication but represents the process as turn taking between sending and receiving, which is incomplete.
- The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create meaning together. This model includes participants who are simultaneously senders and receivers and accounts for how communication constructs our realities, relationships, and communities.
Exercises
- Getting integrated: How might knowing the various components of the communication process help you in your academic life, your professional life, and your civic life?
- Use the transaction model of communication to analyze a recent communication encounter you had. Sketch out the communication encounter and make sure to label each part of the model (participants; message; channel; feedback; noise; contexts).
Page Attribution
This page is derived from the following sources. Modified text is licensed CC-BY 4.0 by Tresha Dutton, Whatcom Community College.
- An Introduction to Organizational Communication, licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, except where otherwise noted.
- Communication in the Real World by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License, except where otherwise noted.
REFERENCES
Barnlund, D. C., “A Transactional Model of Communication,” in Foundations of Communication Theory, eds. Kenneth K. Sereno and C. David Mortensen (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1970).
Berlo, D. (1960). The process of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The “concept” of communication. The Journal of Communication, 20, 201–210.
Ellis, R. and Ann McClintock, You Take My Meaning: Theory into Practice in Human Communication (London: Edward Arnold, 1990).
Rogers, E. M. (2001). The department of communication at Michigan State University as a seed institution for communication study. Communication Studies, 52, 234-248; pg. 234.
Schramm, W. (1954). How communication works. In W. Schramm (Ed.), The process and effects of communication (pp. 3-26). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Schramm, W., The Beginnings of Communication Study in America (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).
Shannon, C. and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
Thurlow, C., Laura Lengel, and Alice Tomic, Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet (London: Sage, 2004).
Learning Objectives
- Explain how communication in defined in the field of Communication Studies.
- Compare and contrast the three models of communication.
- Identify and explain the elements of the transactional model of communication
Communication is a complex process, and it is difficult to determine when a communication encounter starts and ends. Models of communication simplify the process by providing a representation of the various aspects of a communication encounter. Some models explain communication in more detail than others, but even the most complex model still doesn’t fully recreate what we experience in a communication encounter. Models still serve a valuable purpose for students and scholars of communication because they allow us to see parts the process of communication, define communication, and analyze communication with specific language (i.e., concepts). When you become aware of how communication functions, you can think more deliberately about your communication encounters, which can help you prepare for future communication and learn from your past. The three models of communication we will discuss are the linear, interaction, and transactional models.
We will begin by discussing the definition of communication, and then review each of the models that have been used to study this phenomenon. In the last section, we will review the central elements of the transactional model of communication.
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
To begin, there is no agreed upon definition of the word “communication” in the field of Communication Studies. In fact, various scholars have attempted to examine the term and generally found that there are a vast array of different approaches to understanding the term. In one of the most exhaustive examination of the types of definitions created by various academics, Dance (1970) examined 95 unique definitions and broke them down into fifteen different types of definitions. While all of these definitions may exist, not all of them are equally complete for our purposes. As we will see in our review of the models of communication, the most comprehensive and relevant model to date is the transactional model. This model conceptualizes communication as a relational process of created meaning. Thus, we will use the following definition of communication throughout this book: Communication is the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes.
MODELS OF COMMUNICATION
At the most basic level, the three models of communication (linear, interactional, and transactional) can be represented by the following figure:
The linear model originated in the 1940s, the interactional in the 1950s, and the transactional in the 1970s. The original linear model of communication remains influential but theorists have long noted its limitations: the assumptions that listeners are passive, that only one message is transmitted at a time, that communication has a beginning and an end. In fact, a source could transmit a confusing or nonsensical message, rather than a meaningful one, and the linear model would work just as well; there is no provision for gauging whether a message has been understood by its receivers. Neither is the context of a communication situation taken into account. Nevertheless, the linear model introduces helpful concepts and terms that are the basis for understanding, as we will see later, the interactional and transactional models of communication.
LINEAR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Inspired by postwar research at Bell Laboratories on telephone transmissions, Shannon and Weaver (1949) developed the “mathematical model” of human communication. In this model, successful sending and receiving of a message is a function of the channel’s capacity to handle signal degradation caused by static noise on the line. When applied in general to human communication, “noise” can be physical (background noises that make the message harder to hear), physiological (impairments such as hardness of hearing), semantic (difficulties in understanding choices of words), and psychological (predispositions and prejudices that affect how the message is interpreted).
A decade after Shannon and Weaver, Berlo (1960) adapted the concepts into the now-familiar SMCR (source, message, channel, receiver) model. Berlo’s adaptation was “tremendously influential” in offering a more flexible and “humanized conception of Claude Shannon’s model” that facilitated its application to oral, written, and electronic communication (Rogers, 2001).
Yet, as we will see below in the descriptions of the interactional and transactional models, subsequent theorists have attempted to show how communication is better understood as circular rather than linear, how listeners are also active participants in communication, how multiple messages may be sent simultaneously, and how context and culture impact understanding.
Computer-Mediated Communication
When the first computers were created around World War II and the first e-mails exchanged in the early 1960s, we took the first steps toward a future filled with computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004). Those early steps turned into huge strides in the late 1980s and early 1990s when personal computers started becoming regular features in offices, classrooms, and homes. I remember getting our first home computer, a Tandy from Radio Shack, in the early 1990s and then getting our first Internet connection at home in about 1995. I set up my first e-mail account in 1996 and remember how novel and exciting it was to send and receive e-mails. I wasn’t imagining a time when I would get dozens of e-mails a day, much less be able to check them on my cell phone! Many of you reading this book probably can’t remember a time without CMC. If that’s the case, then you’re what some scholars have called “digital natives.” When you take a moment to think about how, over the past twenty years, CMC has changed the way we teach and learn, communicate at work, stay in touch with friends, initiate romantic relationships, search for jobs, manage our money, get our news, and participate in our democracy, it really is amazing to think that all that used to take place without computers. But the increasing use of CMC has also raised some questions and concerns, even among those of you who are digital natives. Almost half of the students in my latest communication research class wanted to do their final research projects on something related to social media. Many of them were interested in studying the effects of CMC on our personal lives and relationships. This desire to study and question CMC may stem from an anxiety that people have about the seeming loss or devaluing of face-to-face (FtF) communication. Aside from concerns about the digital cocoons that many of us find ourselves in, CMC has also raised concerns about privacy, cyberbullying, and lack of civility in online interactions. We will continue to explore many of these issues in the “Getting Plugged In” feature box included in each chapter, but the following questions will help you begin to see the influence that CMC has in your daily communication.
- In a typical day, what types of CMC do you use?
- What are some ways that CMC reduces stress in your life? What are some ways that CMC increases stress in your life? Overall, do you think CMC adds to or reduces your stress more?
- Do you think we, as a society, have less value for FtF communication than we used to? Why or why not?
INTERACTION MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Only a few years after Shannon and Weaver published their one-way linear model, Schramm (1954) proposed an alternate model that portrayed communication as a two-way interaction. He was the first to incorporate feedback—verbal and nonverbal—into a model of communication. The other important innovations in Schramm’s interactive model, which we have adapted in Figure 1.4 "Interactional Model of Communication" below, were the additions of the communication context (the specific setting that may affect meaning) and of “fields of experience” (the frames of reference and the cultures that each participant brings to the communication).
With Schramm’s model, communication moves from a linear to a circular process in which participants are both senders and receivers of messages. Yet the model portrays communication like a tennis match: one participant serves up a message and the other participants then makes a return. Each waits, in turn, passively for the other. Thus, communication goes back and forth as one person (on the left of Figure 1.3) initiates a message and waits until the other (on the right) responds. But if you think about times when you have engaged in conversation, you will recognize how the other person is simultaneously sending messages—often nonverbally—while you are talking. Unlike a tennis match, you do not wait passively until the “ball is in your court” before acting communicatively. To demonstrate the simultaneity of communication, we move next to a transactional model.
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Perhaps the first model to portray communication as a simultaneous transaction is attributed to Barnlund (1970). Later theorists have developed this idea of simultaneity, which is illustrated in Figure 1.4 "Transactional Model for Communication" below. As you can see, messages and feedback are being exchanged at the same time between communicators. And because they are engaged together in the transaction, their fields of experience overlap.
This expanded view of how communication functions can help us to better understand how individuals communicate with one another in a variety of context and relationships (e.g., interpersonal, public speaking, small groups, organizations). Communication scholars view communication as more than sending messages like computers, as we don’t neatly alternate between the roles of sender and receiver as an interaction unfolds. We also don't consciously decide to stop communicating when communicating with others in person.
In summary, the transactional model of communication is the most complete model to date. This model characterizes communication as something that participants do with one another, not to one another. Communication is a process that is ongoing, ever-changing, and meaning making occurs through verbal and nonverbal symbols. The central elements of the transactional model of communication are reviewed below. While these elements are listed as separate concepts, they overlap in practice. These elements, and the transactional nature of communication, will be woven throughout the remaining of this book and our discussions, so this is only a brief introduction of each element for now.
Elements of the transactional model of communication
1. Participants
The transaction model of communication does not conceptualize individuals as either sender or receivers, but simultaneously senders and receivers. As participants in the communication interaction, we bring our past experiences, expectations, skills, knowledge and cultural contexts with us to our interactions. All of these inform our communication experiences with others.
2. Channel
The channel is the means through which the message is communicated and received. When interacting with others in person, we use verbal and nonverbal channels of communication. As a general rule of thumb, the more complex or unfamiliar the others are with the message, the more channels of communicate we should use. Thus, in addition to our verbal and nonverbal channels, we may need to use written and visual channels as well.
In our modern world, we are also able to communicate with individuals that are not occupying the same physical space as we are. A mediated channel is the use some kind of technology (e.g., text message, Instagram, TicTok). In today’s technologically advanced world, we are increasingly spending more and more time communicating with each other using mediated channels of communication.
3. Message
When communicating with others, a primary goal is usually to create shared understanding. Notice the caveat of “usually”, as there are times that individuals are purposefully vague or deceptive. But when we are attempting to create shared meaning, the content and organization of our messages are important considerations. Content has to do with the words we choose to use, the level of detail we provide, and the thoroughness of our messaging. Organization represents how well we connect the content in a meaningful way.
4. Feedback
Feedback refers to a response to a message. Feedback can be verbal (e.g. ask/answer a question), nonverbal (e.g., nodding, frown on one’s face) and the apparent lack of feedback (i.e., not responding). However, by not responding to someone, you are providing feedback.
5. Noise
Noise refers to those things that get in the way of the participants staying present in the communication interaction, and falls into three categories: external, psychological and physiological. External noise is “stuff” in the environment that distracts us for attending to the others we are communicating with. This may be a loud noise, strong odor, poorly lite room, etcetera. Psychological noise occurs when we are thinking about things other than the message being created at that time. We may be preoccupied by thinking about an upcoming exam, or a difficult conversation we are going to have later in the day. Additionally, psychological noise can occur when we are thinking about what was just said, and not keeping pace with what's being added to that message (e.g., interested by the example shared but now missing the next point). Lastly, physiological noise refers to things having to do with our bodies that keep us from staying present in the interaction. Perhaps we have a horrible migraine, or we are extremely tired. These physiological states can inhibit our ability to attend to message creation with the others.
6. Context
A final element of the transactional model of communication important to review is context. Context includes the physical setting (e.g., stadium seating in a large lecture hall) location of the interaction (e.g., at the park) as well as social and cultural contexts.
As we grow up, we learn the pragmatic rules of how to communicate with others using our same language system. For example, in the United States, we learn pragmatic rules like don’t interrupt people, greet people when they greet you, and so on. Our interactions with others (e.g., parents and teachers) often explicitly convey these rules, however, these social expectations (contexts) are also learned via our interactions with generalized others. What is important to recognize is that these pragmatic rules can inform our interpretation of a message and ‘appropriate’ types of feedback. For example, we tend to learn that when at the grocery store in the checkout line, the clerk's question “How is your day going?” is a social greeting as opposed to a request for detailed disclosure. Conversely, when a best friend asks us the same question, we interpret the message differently, and share our true feelings about the day. This is one example of how social context informs our creation of shared meaning with others.
Cultural context(s) are also an important piece of the transactional nature of communication. Cultures includes various aspects of identities such as race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and ability. We all have multiple cultural identities that influence our communication with others. Some people, especially those with identities that have been historically marginalized, are regularly aware of how their cultural identities influence their communication and influence how others communicate with them. Conversely, people with identities that are dominant or in the majority may rarely, if ever, think about the role their cultural identities play in their communication. We will discuss this in more detail in our chapter on culture and communication.
Summary
To review, communication will be defined in this book as the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes. Communication was originally conceptualized as a linear process. The linear model viewed communication as a thing, like an information packet, that was sent from one person to another. From this view, communication would be defined as sending and receiving messages. The interaction model viewed communication as a process in which a message is sent and then followed by a reaction (feedback), which is then followed by another reaction, and so on. From this view, communication is defined as producing meaning with alternating roles between being a sender and a receiver.
The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create shared meaning with one another. Unlike the interaction model, which suggests that people alternate positions as sender and receiver, the transactional model suggests that we are simultaneously senders and receivers. In this model, we don’t just communicate to exchange messages; we communicate to create relationships, understand one another, shape our self-concepts, and engage with others in dialogue to create communities. In short, we don’t communicate about our realities; communication helps to construct our realities.
To fully understand the transactional nature of communication, scholars have identified several elements of this process (e.g., participants, message, context, feedback, noise, channel) that help us think about communication as a complex process of meaning-making with others.
Key Takeaways
- Communication models are not complex enough to truly capture all that takes place in a communication encounter, but they can help us examine the various steps in the process in order to better understand our communication and the communication of others.
- The Linear model of communication describes communication as a one-way process in which a sender encodes a message and transmits it through a channel to a receiver who decodes it. This model is too simple to characterize communication, but was an important seminal work that more robust models have expanded.
- The interaction model of communication describes communication as a two-way process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts. This model captures the interactive aspects of communication but represents the process as turn taking between sending and receiving, which is incomplete.
- The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create meaning together. This model includes participants who are simultaneously senders and receivers and accounts for how communication constructs our realities, relationships, and communities.
Exercises
- Getting integrated: How might knowing the various components of the communication process help you in your academic life, your professional life, and your civic life?
- Use the transaction model of communication to analyze a recent communication encounter you had. Sketch out the communication encounter and make sure to label each part of the model (participants; message; channel; feedback; noise; contexts).
Page Attribution
This page is derived from the following sources. Modified text is licensed CC-BY 4.0 by Tresha Dutton, Whatcom Community College.
- An Introduction to Organizational Communication, licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, except where otherwise noted.
- Communication in the Real World by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License, except where otherwise noted.
REFERENCES
Barnlund, D. C., “A Transactional Model of Communication,” in Foundations of Communication Theory, eds. Kenneth K. Sereno and C. David Mortensen (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1970).
Berlo, D. (1960). The process of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The “concept” of communication. The Journal of Communication, 20, 201–210.
Ellis, R. and Ann McClintock, You Take My Meaning: Theory into Practice in Human Communication (London: Edward Arnold, 1990).
Rogers, E. M. (2001). The department of communication at Michigan State University as a seed institution for communication study. Communication Studies, 52, 234-248; pg. 234.
Schramm, W. (1954). How communication works. In W. Schramm (Ed.), The process and effects of communication (pp. 3-26). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Schramm, W., The Beginnings of Communication Study in America (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).
Shannon, C. and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
Thurlow, C., Laura Lengel, and Alice Tomic, Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet (London: Sage, 2004).
Learning Objectives
- Explain how communication in defined in the field of Communication Studies.
- Compare and contrast the three models of communication.
- Identify and explain the elements of the transactional model of communication
Communication is a complex process, and it is difficult to determine when a communication encounter starts and ends. Models of communication simplify the process by providing a representation of the various aspects of a communication encounter. Some models explain communication in more detail than others, but even the most complex model still doesn’t fully recreate what we experience in a communication encounter. Models still serve a valuable purpose for students and scholars of communication because they allow us to see parts the process of communication, define communication, and analyze communication with specific language (i.e., concepts). When you become aware of how communication functions, you can think more deliberately about your communication encounters, which can help you prepare for future communication and learn from your past. The three models of communication we will discuss are the linear, interaction, and transactional models.
We will begin by discussing the definition of communication, and then review each of the models that have been used to study this phenomenon. In the last section, we will review the central elements of the transactional model of communication.
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
To begin, there is no agreed upon definition of the word “communication” in the field of Communication Studies. In fact, various scholars have attempted to examine the term and generally found that there are a vast array of different approaches to understanding the term. In one of the most exhaustive examination of the types of definitions created by various academics, Dance (1970) examined 95 unique definitions and broke them down into fifteen different types of definitions. While all of these definitions may exist, not all of them are equally complete for our purposes. As we will see in our review of the models of communication, the most comprehensive and relevant model to date is the transactional model. This model conceptualizes communication as a relational process of created meaning. Thus, we will use the following definition of communication throughout this book: Communication is the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes.
MODELS OF COMMUNICATION
At the most basic level, the three models of communication (linear, interactional, and transactional) can be represented by the following figure:
The linear model originated in the 1940s, the interactional in the 1950s, and the transactional in the 1970s. The original linear model of communication remains influential but theorists have long noted its limitations: the assumptions that listeners are passive, that only one message is transmitted at a time, that communication has a beginning and an end. In fact, a source could transmit a confusing or nonsensical message, rather than a meaningful one, and the linear model would work just as well; there is no provision for gauging whether a message has been understood by its receivers. Neither is the context of a communication situation taken into account. Nevertheless, the linear model introduces helpful concepts and terms that are the basis for understanding, as we will see later, the interactional and transactional models of communication.
LINEAR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Inspired by postwar research at Bell Laboratories on telephone transmissions, Shannon and Weaver (1949) developed the “mathematical model” of human communication. In this model, successful sending and receiving of a message is a function of the channel’s capacity to handle signal degradation caused by static noise on the line. When applied in general to human communication, “noise” can be physical (background noises that make the message harder to hear), physiological (impairments such as hardness of hearing), semantic (difficulties in understanding choices of words), and psychological (predispositions and prejudices that affect how the message is interpreted).
A decade after Shannon and Weaver, Berlo (1960) adapted the concepts into the now-familiar SMCR (source, message, channel, receiver) model. Berlo’s adaptation was “tremendously influential” in offering a more flexible and “humanized conception of Claude Shannon’s model” that facilitated its application to oral, written, and electronic communication (Rogers, 2001).
Yet, as we will see below in the descriptions of the interactional and transactional models, subsequent theorists have attempted to show how communication is better understood as circular rather than linear, how listeners are also active participants in communication, how multiple messages may be sent simultaneously, and how context and culture impact understanding.
Computer-Mediated Communication
When the first computers were created around World War II and the first e-mails exchanged in the early 1960s, we took the first steps toward a future filled with computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004). Those early steps turned into huge strides in the late 1980s and early 1990s when personal computers started becoming regular features in offices, classrooms, and homes. I remember getting our first home computer, a Tandy from Radio Shack, in the early 1990s and then getting our first Internet connection at home in about 1995. I set up my first e-mail account in 1996 and remember how novel and exciting it was to send and receive e-mails. I wasn’t imagining a time when I would get dozens of e-mails a day, much less be able to check them on my cell phone! Many of you reading this book probably can’t remember a time without CMC. If that’s the case, then you’re what some scholars have called “digital natives.” When you take a moment to think about how, over the past twenty years, CMC has changed the way we teach and learn, communicate at work, stay in touch with friends, initiate romantic relationships, search for jobs, manage our money, get our news, and participate in our democracy, it really is amazing to think that all that used to take place without computers. But the increasing use of CMC has also raised some questions and concerns, even among those of you who are digital natives. Almost half of the students in my latest communication research class wanted to do their final research projects on something related to social media. Many of them were interested in studying the effects of CMC on our personal lives and relationships. This desire to study and question CMC may stem from an anxiety that people have about the seeming loss or devaluing of face-to-face (FtF) communication. Aside from concerns about the digital cocoons that many of us find ourselves in, CMC has also raised concerns about privacy, cyberbullying, and lack of civility in online interactions. We will continue to explore many of these issues in the “Getting Plugged In” feature box included in each chapter, but the following questions will help you begin to see the influence that CMC has in your daily communication.
- In a typical day, what types of CMC do you use?
- What are some ways that CMC reduces stress in your life? What are some ways that CMC increases stress in your life? Overall, do you think CMC adds to or reduces your stress more?
- Do you think we, as a society, have less value for FtF communication than we used to? Why or why not?
INTERACTION MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Only a few years after Shannon and Weaver published their one-way linear model, Schramm (1954) proposed an alternate model that portrayed communication as a two-way interaction. He was the first to incorporate feedback—verbal and nonverbal—into a model of communication. The other important innovations in Schramm’s interactive model, which we have adapted in Figure 1.4 "Interactional Model of Communication" below, were the additions of the communication context (the specific setting that may affect meaning) and of “fields of experience” (the frames of reference and the cultures that each participant brings to the communication).
With Schramm’s model, communication moves from a linear to a circular process in which participants are both senders and receivers of messages. Yet the model portrays communication like a tennis match: one participant serves up a message and the other participants then makes a return. Each waits, in turn, passively for the other. Thus, communication goes back and forth as one person (on the left of Figure 1.3) initiates a message and waits until the other (on the right) responds. But if you think about times when you have engaged in conversation, you will recognize how the other person is simultaneously sending messages—often nonverbally—while you are talking. Unlike a tennis match, you do not wait passively until the “ball is in your court” before acting communicatively. To demonstrate the simultaneity of communication, we move next to a transactional model.
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Perhaps the first model to portray communication as a simultaneous transaction is attributed to Barnlund (1970). Later theorists have developed this idea of simultaneity, which is illustrated in Figure 1.4 "Transactional Model for Communication" below. As you can see, messages and feedback are being exchanged at the same time between communicators. And because they are engaged together in the transaction, their fields of experience overlap.
This expanded view of how communication functions can help us to better understand how individuals communicate with one another in a variety of context and relationships (e.g., interpersonal, public speaking, small groups, organizations). Communication scholars view communication as more than sending messages like computers, as we don’t neatly alternate between the roles of sender and receiver as an interaction unfolds. We also don't consciously decide to stop communicating when communicating with others in person.
In summary, the transactional model of communication is the most complete model to date. This model characterizes communication as something that participants do with one another, not to one another. Communication is a process that is ongoing, ever-changing, and meaning making occurs through verbal and nonverbal symbols. The central elements of the transactional model of communication are reviewed below. While these elements are listed as separate concepts, they overlap in practice. These elements, and the transactional nature of communication, will be woven throughout the remaining of this book and our discussions, so this is only a brief introduction of each element for now.
Elements of the transactional model of communication
1. Participants
The transaction model of communication does not conceptualize individuals as either sender or receivers, but simultaneously senders and receivers. As participants in the communication interaction, we bring our past experiences, expectations, skills, knowledge and cultural contexts with us to our interactions. All of these inform our communication experiences with others.
2. Channel
The channel is the means through which the message is communicated and received. When interacting with others in person, we use verbal and nonverbal channels of communication. As a general rule of thumb, the more complex or unfamiliar the others are with the message, the more channels of communicate we should use. Thus, in addition to our verbal and nonverbal channels, we may need to use written and visual channels as well.
In our modern world, we are also able to communicate with individuals that are not occupying the same physical space as we are. A mediated channel is the use some kind of technology (e.g., text message, Instagram, TicTok). In today’s technologically advanced world, we are increasingly spending more and more time communicating with each other using mediated channels of communication.
3. Message
When communicating with others, a primary goal is usually to create shared understanding. Notice the caveat of “usually”, as there are times that individuals are purposefully vague or deceptive. But when we are attempting to create shared meaning, the content and organization of our messages are important considerations. Content has to do with the words we choose to use, the level of detail we provide, and the thoroughness of our messaging. Organization represents how well we connect the content in a meaningful way.
4. Feedback
Feedback refers to a response to a message. Feedback can be verbal (e.g. ask/answer a question), nonverbal (e.g., nodding, frown on one’s face) and the apparent lack of feedback (i.e., not responding). However, by not responding to someone, you are providing feedback.
5. Noise
Noise refers to those things that get in the way of the participants staying present in the communication interaction, and falls into three categories: external, psychological and physiological. External noise is “stuff” in the environment that distracts us for attending to the others we are communicating with. This may be a loud noise, strong odor, poorly lite room, etcetera. Psychological noise occurs when we are thinking about things other than the message being created at that time. We may be preoccupied by thinking about an upcoming exam, or a difficult conversation we are going to have later in the day. Additionally, psychological noise can occur when we are thinking about what was just said, and not keeping pace with what's being added to that message (e.g., interested by the example shared but now missing the next point). Lastly, physiological noise refers to things having to do with our bodies that keep us from staying present in the interaction. Perhaps we have a horrible migraine, or we are extremely tired. These physiological states can inhibit our ability to attend to message creation with the others.
6. Context
A final element of the transactional model of communication important to review is context. Context includes the physical setting (e.g., stadium seating in a large lecture hall) location of the interaction (e.g., at the park) as well as social and cultural contexts.
As we grow up, we learn the pragmatic rules of how to communicate with others using our same language system. For example, in the United States, we learn pragmatic rules like don’t interrupt people, greet people when they greet you, and so on. Our interactions with others (e.g., parents and teachers) often explicitly convey these rules, however, these social expectations (contexts) are also learned via our interactions with generalized others. What is important to recognize is that these pragmatic rules can inform our interpretation of a message and ‘appropriate’ types of feedback. For example, we tend to learn that when at the grocery store in the checkout line, the clerk's question “How is your day going?” is a social greeting as opposed to a request for detailed disclosure. Conversely, when a best friend asks us the same question, we interpret the message differently, and share our true feelings about the day. This is one example of how social context informs our creation of shared meaning with others.
Cultural context(s) are also an important piece of the transactional nature of communication. Cultures includes various aspects of identities such as race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and ability. We all have multiple cultural identities that influence our communication with others. Some people, especially those with identities that have been historically marginalized, are regularly aware of how their cultural identities influence their communication and influence how others communicate with them. Conversely, people with identities that are dominant or in the majority may rarely, if ever, think about the role their cultural identities play in their communication. We will discuss this in more detail in our chapter on culture and communication.
Summary
To review, communication will be defined in this book as the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes. Communication was originally conceptualized as a linear process. The linear model viewed communication as a thing, like an information packet, that was sent from one person to another. From this view, communication would be defined as sending and receiving messages. The interaction model viewed communication as a process in which a message is sent and then followed by a reaction (feedback), which is then followed by another reaction, and so on. From this view, communication is defined as producing meaning with alternating roles between being a sender and a receiver.
The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create shared meaning with one another. Unlike the interaction model, which suggests that people alternate positions as sender and receiver, the transactional model suggests that we are simultaneously senders and receivers. In this model, we don’t just communicate to exchange messages; we communicate to create relationships, understand one another, shape our self-concepts, and engage with others in dialogue to create communities. In short, we don’t communicate about our realities; communication helps to construct our realities.
To fully understand the transactional nature of communication, scholars have identified several elements of this process (e.g., participants, message, context, feedback, noise, channel) that help us think about communication as a complex process of meaning-making with others.
Key Takeaways
- Communication models are not complex enough to truly capture all that takes place in a communication encounter, but they can help us examine the various steps in the process in order to better understand our communication and the communication of others.
- The Linear model of communication describes communication as a one-way process in which a sender encodes a message and transmits it through a channel to a receiver who decodes it. This model is too simple to characterize communication, but was an important seminal work that more robust models have expanded.
- The interaction model of communication describes communication as a two-way process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts. This model captures the interactive aspects of communication but represents the process as turn taking between sending and receiving, which is incomplete.
- The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create meaning together. This model includes participants who are simultaneously senders and receivers and accounts for how communication constructs our realities, relationships, and communities.
Exercises
- Getting integrated: How might knowing the various components of the communication process help you in your academic life, your professional life, and your civic life?
- Use the transaction model of communication to analyze a recent communication encounter you had. Sketch out the communication encounter and make sure to label each part of the model (participants; message; channel; feedback; noise; contexts).
Page Attribution
This page is derived from the following sources. Modified text is licensed CC-BY 4.0 by Tresha Dutton, Whatcom Community College.
- An Introduction to Organizational Communication, licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, except where otherwise noted.
- Communication in the Real World by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License, except where otherwise noted.
REFERENCES
Barnlund, D. C., “A Transactional Model of Communication,” in Foundations of Communication Theory, eds. Kenneth K. Sereno and C. David Mortensen (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1970).
Berlo, D. (1960). The process of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The “concept” of communication. The Journal of Communication, 20, 201–210.
Ellis, R. and Ann McClintock, You Take My Meaning: Theory into Practice in Human Communication (London: Edward Arnold, 1990).
Rogers, E. M. (2001). The department of communication at Michigan State University as a seed institution for communication study. Communication Studies, 52, 234-248; pg. 234.
Schramm, W. (1954). How communication works. In W. Schramm (Ed.), The process and effects of communication (pp. 3-26). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Schramm, W., The Beginnings of Communication Study in America (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).
Shannon, C. and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
Thurlow, C., Laura Lengel, and Alice Tomic, Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet (London: Sage, 2004).
Learning Objectives
- Define communication.
- Distinguish between intrapersonal and interpersonal communication.
Before we dive into the history of , it is important that we have a shared understanding of what we mean by the word communication. For our purposes in this book, we will define communication as the process of creating meaning through the use of symbols. This definition builds on other definitions of communication that have been rephrased and refined over many years. In fact, since the systematic study of communication began in colleges and universities a little over one hundred years ago, there have been more than 126 published definitions of communication.
Intrapersonal Communication
is communication with oneself using internal vocalization or reflective thinking. Like other forms of communication, intrapersonal communication is triggered by some internal or external stimulus. We may, for example, communicate with our self about what we want to eat due to the internal stimulus of hunger, or we may react intrapersonally to an event we witness. Unlike other forms of communication, intrapersonal communication takes place only inside our heads. The other forms of communication must be perceived by someone else to count as communication. So what is the point of intrapersonal communication if no one else even sees it?
Intrapersonal communication serves several social functions. Internal vocalization, or talking to ourselves, can help us achieve or maintain social adjustment (Dance 51). For example, a person may use self-talk to calm himself down in a stressful situation, or a shy person may remind herself to smile during a social event. Intrapersonal communication also helps build and maintain our self- concept. We form an understanding of who we are based on how other people communicate with us and how we process that communication intrapersonally. The shy person in the earlier example probably internalized shyness as a part of her self-concept because other people associated her communication behaviors with shyness and may have even labeled her “shy” before she had a firm grasp on what that meant. We will discuss self-concept much more in Chapter 2 "Communication and Perception", which focuses on perception. We also use intrapersonal communication or “self-talk” to let off steam, process emotions, think through something, or rehearse what we plan to say or do in the future. As with the other forms of communication, competent intrapersonal communication helps facilitate social interaction and can enhance our well-being. Conversely, the breakdown in the ability of a person to intrapersonally communicate is associated with mental illness (Dance 55).
Sometimes we intrapersonally communicate for the fun of it. I’m sure we have all had the experience of laughing aloud because we thought of something funny. We also communicate intrapersonally to pass time. I bet there is a lot of intrapersonal communication going on in waiting rooms all over the world right now. In both of these cases, intrapersonal communication is usually unplanned and doesn’t include a clearly defined goal (Dance 28). We can, however, engage in more intentional intrapersonal communication. In fact, deliberate self-reflection can help us become more competent communicators as we become more mindful of our own behaviors. For example, your internal voice may praise or scold you based on a thought or action.
Of the forms of communication, intrapersonal communication has received the least amount of formal study. It is rare to find courses devoted to the topic, and it is generally separated from the remaining four types of communication. The main distinction is that intrapersonal communication is not created with the intention that another person will perceive it. In all the other levels, the fact that the communicator anticipates consumption of their message is very important.
Interpersonal Communication
is communication between people whose lives mutually influence one another. Interpersonal communication builds, maintains, and ends our relationships, and we spend more time engaged in interpersonal communication than the other forms of communication. Interpersonal communication occurs in various contexts and is addressed in subfields of study within communication studies such as intercultural communication, organizational communication, health communication, and computer-mediated communication. After all, interpersonal relationships exist in all those contexts.
Interpersonal communication can be planned or unplanned, but since it is interactive, it is usually more structured and influenced by social expectations than intrapersonal communication. Interpersonal communication is also more goal oriented than intrapersonal communication and fulfills instrumental and relational needs. In terms of instrumental needs, the goal may be as minor as greeting someone to fulfill a morning ritual or as major as conveying your desire to be in a committed relationship with someone. Interpersonal communication meets relational needs by communicating the uniqueness of a specific relationship. Since this form of communication deals so directly with our personal relationships and is the most common form of communication, instances of miscommunication and communication conflict most frequently occur here (Dance 56). Couples, bosses and employees, and family members all have to engage in complex interpersonal communication, and it doesn’t always go well. In order to be a competent interpersonal communicator, you need conflict management skills and listening skills, among others, to maintain positive relationships.
“Getting Real”
What Can You Do with a Degree in Communication Studies?
You’re hopefully already beginning to see that communication studies is a diverse and vibrant field of study. The multiple subfields and concentrations within the field allow for exciting opportunities for study in academic contexts but can create confusion and uncertainty when a person considers what they might do for their career after studying communication. It’s important to remember that not every college or university will have courses or concentrations in all the areas discussed next. Look at the communication courses offered at your school to get an idea of where the communication department on your campus fits into the overall field of study. Some departments are more general, offering students a range of courses to provide a well-rounded understanding of communication. Many departments offer concentrations or specializations within the major such as public relations, rhetoric, interpersonal communication, electronic media production, corporate communication. If you are at a community college and plan on transferring to another school, your choice of school may be determined by the course offerings in the department and expertise of the school’s communication faculty. It would be unfortunate for a student interested in public relations to end up in a department that focuses more on rhetoric or broadcasting, so doing your research ahead of time is key.
Since communication studies is a broad field, many students strategically choose a concentration and/or a minor that will give them an advantage in the job market. Specialization can definitely be an advantage, but don’t forget about the general skills you gain as a communication major. This book, for example, should help you build communication competence and skills in interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, group communication, and public speaking, among others. You can also use your school’s career services office to help you learn how to “sell” yourself as a communication major and how to translate what you’ve learned in your classes into useful information to include on your resume or in a job interview.
The main career areas that communication majors go into are business, public relations / advertising, media, nonprofit, government/law, and education. Within each of these areas there are multiple career paths, potential employers, and useful strategies for success. (More detailed information here).
- Business. Sales, customer service, management, real estate, human resources, training and development.
- Public relations / advertising. Public relations, advertising/marketing, public opinion research, development, event coordination.
- Media. Editing, copywriting, publishing, producing, directing, media sales, broadcasting.
- Nonprofit. Administration, grant writing, fund-raising, public relations, volunteer coordination.
- Government/law. City or town management, community affairs, lobbying, conflict negotiation / mediation.
- Education. High school speech teacher, forensics/debate coach, administration and student support services, graduate school to further communication study.
- Which of the areas listed above are you most interested in studying in school or pursuing as a career? Why?
- What aspect(s) of communication studies does/do the department at your school specialize in? What concentrations/courses are offered?
- Whether or not you are or plan to become a communication major, how do you think you could use what you have learned and will learn in this class to “sell” yourself on the job market?
Key Takeaways
- Communication is the process of generating meaning by sending and receiving symbolic cues that are influenced by multiple contexts.
- Intrapersonal communication is communication with oneself and occurs only inside our heads.
- Interpersonal communication is communication between people whose lives mutually influence one another.
Exercises
- Come up with your own definition of communication. How does it differ from the definition in the book? Why did you choose to define communication the way you did?
- Over the course of a day, keep track of the forms of communication that you use. Make a pie chart of how much time you think you spend, on an average day, engaging in each form of communication (intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, public, and mass).
Learning Objectives
- Explain how communication in defined in the field of Communication Studies.
- Compare and contrast the three models of communication.
- Identify and explain the elements of the transactional model of communication
Communication is a complex process, and it is difficult to determine when a communication encounter starts and ends. Models of communication simplify the process by providing a representation of the various aspects of a communication encounter. Some models explain communication in more detail than others, but even the most complex model still doesn’t fully recreate what we experience in a communication encounter. Models still serve a valuable purpose for students and scholars of communication because they allow us to see parts the process of communication, define communication, and analyze communication with specific language (i.e., concepts). When you become aware of how communication functions, you can think more deliberately about your communication encounters, which can help you prepare for future communication and learn from your past. The three models of communication we will discuss are the linear, interaction, and transactional models.
We will begin by discussing the definition of communication, and then review each of the models that have been used to study this phenomenon. In the last section, we will review the central elements of the transactional model of communication.
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
To begin, there is no agreed upon definition of the word “communication” in the field of Communication Studies. In fact, various scholars have attempted to examine the term and generally found that there are a vast array of different approaches to understanding the term. In one of the most exhaustive examination of the types of definitions created by various academics, Dance (1970) examined 95 unique definitions and broke them down into fifteen different types of definitions. While all of these definitions may exist, not all of them are equally complete for our purposes. As we will see in our review of the models of communication, the most comprehensive and relevant model to date is the transactional model. This model conceptualizes communication as a relational process of created meaning. Thus, we will use the following definition of communication throughout this book: Communication is the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes.
MODELS OF COMMUNICATION
At the most basic level, the three models of communication (linear, interactional, and transactional) can be represented by the following figure:
The linear model originated in the 1940s, the interactional in the 1950s, and the transactional in the 1970s. The original linear model of communication remains influential but theorists have long noted its limitations: the assumptions that listeners are passive, that only one message is transmitted at a time, that communication has a beginning and an end. In fact, a source could transmit a confusing or nonsensical message, rather than a meaningful one, and the linear model would work just as well; there is no provision for gauging whether a message has been understood by its receivers. Neither is the context of a communication situation taken into account. Nevertheless, the linear model introduces helpful concepts and terms that are the basis for understanding, as we will see later, the interactional and transactional models of communication.
LINEAR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Inspired by postwar research at Bell Laboratories on telephone transmissions, Shannon and Weaver (1949) developed the “mathematical model” of human communication. In this model, successful sending and receiving of a message is a function of the channel’s capacity to handle signal degradation caused by static noise on the line. When applied in general to human communication, “noise” can be physical (background noises that make the message harder to hear), physiological (impairments such as hardness of hearing), semantic (difficulties in understanding choices of words), and psychological (predispositions and prejudices that affect how the message is interpreted).
A decade after Shannon and Weaver, Berlo (1960) adapted the concepts into the now-familiar SMCR (source, message, channel, receiver) model. Berlo’s adaptation was “tremendously influential” in offering a more flexible and “humanized conception of Claude Shannon’s model” that facilitated its application to oral, written, and electronic communication (Rogers, 2001).
Yet, as we will see below in the descriptions of the interactional and transactional models, subsequent theorists have attempted to show how communication is better understood as circular rather than linear, how listeners are also active participants in communication, how multiple messages may be sent simultaneously, and how context and culture impact understanding.
Computer-Mediated Communication
When the first computers were created around World War II and the first e-mails exchanged in the early 1960s, we took the first steps toward a future filled with computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004). Those early steps turned into huge strides in the late 1980s and early 1990s when personal computers started becoming regular features in offices, classrooms, and homes. I remember getting our first home computer, a Tandy from Radio Shack, in the early 1990s and then getting our first Internet connection at home in about 1995. I set up my first e-mail account in 1996 and remember how novel and exciting it was to send and receive e-mails. I wasn’t imagining a time when I would get dozens of e-mails a day, much less be able to check them on my cell phone! Many of you reading this book probably can’t remember a time without CMC. If that’s the case, then you’re what some scholars have called “digital natives.” When you take a moment to think about how, over the past twenty years, CMC has changed the way we teach and learn, communicate at work, stay in touch with friends, initiate romantic relationships, search for jobs, manage our money, get our news, and participate in our democracy, it really is amazing to think that all that used to take place without computers. But the increasing use of CMC has also raised some questions and concerns, even among those of you who are digital natives. Almost half of the students in my latest communication research class wanted to do their final research projects on something related to social media. Many of them were interested in studying the effects of CMC on our personal lives and relationships. This desire to study and question CMC may stem from an anxiety that people have about the seeming loss or devaluing of face-to-face (FtF) communication. Aside from concerns about the digital cocoons that many of us find ourselves in, CMC has also raised concerns about privacy, cyberbullying, and lack of civility in online interactions. We will continue to explore many of these issues in the “Getting Plugged In” feature box included in each chapter, but the following questions will help you begin to see the influence that CMC has in your daily communication.
- In a typical day, what types of CMC do you use?
- What are some ways that CMC reduces stress in your life? What are some ways that CMC increases stress in your life? Overall, do you think CMC adds to or reduces your stress more?
- Do you think we, as a society, have less value for FtF communication than we used to? Why or why not?
INTERACTION MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Only a few years after Shannon and Weaver published their one-way linear model, Schramm (1954) proposed an alternate model that portrayed communication as a two-way interaction. He was the first to incorporate feedback—verbal and nonverbal—into a model of communication. The other important innovations in Schramm’s interactive model, which we have adapted in Figure 1.4 "Interactional Model of Communication" below, were the additions of the communication context (the specific setting that may affect meaning) and of “fields of experience” (the frames of reference and the cultures that each participant brings to the communication).
With Schramm’s model, communication moves from a linear to a circular process in which participants are both senders and receivers of messages. Yet the model portrays communication like a tennis match: one participant serves up a message and the other participants then makes a return. Each waits, in turn, passively for the other. Thus, communication goes back and forth as one person (on the left of Figure 1.3) initiates a message and waits until the other (on the right) responds. But if you think about times when you have engaged in conversation, you will recognize how the other person is simultaneously sending messages—often nonverbally—while you are talking. Unlike a tennis match, you do not wait passively until the “ball is in your court” before acting communicatively. To demonstrate the simultaneity of communication, we move next to a transactional model.
TRANSACTIONAL MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
Perhaps the first model to portray communication as a simultaneous transaction is attributed to Barnlund (1970). Later theorists have developed this idea of simultaneity, which is illustrated in Figure 1.4 "Transactional Model for Communication" below. As you can see, messages and feedback are being exchanged at the same time between communicators. And because they are engaged together in the transaction, their fields of experience overlap.
This expanded view of how communication functions can help us to better understand how individuals communicate with one another in a variety of context and relationships (e.g., interpersonal, public speaking, small groups, organizations). Communication scholars view communication as more than sending messages like computers, as we don’t neatly alternate between the roles of sender and receiver as an interaction unfolds. We also don't consciously decide to stop communicating when communicating with others in person.
In summary, the transactional model of communication is the most complete model to date. This model characterizes communication as something that participants do with one another, not to one another. Communication is a process that is ongoing, ever-changing, and meaning making occurs through verbal and nonverbal symbols. The central elements of the transactional model of communication are reviewed below. While these elements are listed as separate concepts, they overlap in practice. These elements, and the transactional nature of communication, will be woven throughout the remaining of this book and our discussions, so this is only a brief introduction of each element for now.
Elements of the transactional model of communication
1. Participants
The transaction model of communication does not conceptualize individuals as either sender or receivers, but simultaneously senders and receivers. As participants in the communication interaction, we bring our past experiences, expectations, skills, knowledge and cultural contexts with us to our interactions. All of these inform our communication experiences with others.
2. Channel
The channel is the means through which the message is communicated and received. When interacting with others in person, we use verbal and nonverbal channels of communication. As a general rule of thumb, the more complex or unfamiliar the others are with the message, the more channels of communicate we should use. Thus, in addition to our verbal and nonverbal channels, we may need to use written and visual channels as well.
In our modern world, we are also able to communicate with individuals that are not occupying the same physical space as we are. A mediated channel is the use some kind of technology (e.g., text message, Instagram, TicTok). In today’s technologically advanced world, we are increasingly spending more and more time communicating with each other using mediated channels of communication.
3. Message
When communicating with others, a primary goal is usually to create shared understanding. Notice the caveat of “usually”, as there are times that individuals are purposefully vague or deceptive. But when we are attempting to create shared meaning, the content and organization of our messages are important considerations. Content has to do with the words we choose to use, the level of detail we provide, and the thoroughness of our messaging. Organization represents how well we connect the content in a meaningful way.
4. Feedback
Feedback refers to a response to a message. Feedback can be verbal (e.g. ask/answer a question), nonverbal (e.g., nodding, frown on one’s face) and the apparent lack of feedback (i.e., not responding). However, by not responding to someone, you are providing feedback.
5. Noise
Noise refers to those things that get in the way of the participants staying present in the communication interaction, and falls into three categories: external, psychological and physiological. External noise is “stuff” in the environment that distracts us for attending to the others we are communicating with. This may be a loud noise, strong odor, poorly lite room, etcetera. Psychological noise occurs when we are thinking about things other than the message being created at that time. We may be preoccupied by thinking about an upcoming exam, or a difficult conversation we are going to have later in the day. Additionally, psychological noise can occur when we are thinking about what was just said, and not keeping pace with what's being added to that message (e.g., interested by the example shared but now missing the next point). Lastly, physiological noise refers to things having to do with our bodies that keep us from staying present in the interaction. Perhaps we have a horrible migraine, or we are extremely tired. These physiological states can inhibit our ability to attend to message creation with the others.
6. Context
A final element of the transactional model of communication important to review is context. Context includes the physical setting (e.g., stadium seating in a large lecture hall) location of the interaction (e.g., at the park) as well as social and cultural contexts.
As we grow up, we learn the pragmatic rules of how to communicate with others using our same language system. For example, in the United States, we learn pragmatic rules like don’t interrupt people, greet people when they greet you, and so on. Our interactions with others (e.g., parents and teachers) often explicitly convey these rules, however, these social expectations (contexts) are also learned via our interactions with generalized others. What is important to recognize is that these pragmatic rules can inform our interpretation of a message and ‘appropriate’ types of feedback. For example, we tend to learn that when at the grocery store in the checkout line, the clerk's question “How is your day going?” is a social greeting as opposed to a request for detailed disclosure. Conversely, when a best friend asks us the same question, we interpret the message differently, and share our true feelings about the day. This is one example of how social context informs our creation of shared meaning with others.
Cultural context(s) are also an important piece of the transactional nature of communication. Cultures includes various aspects of identities such as race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and ability. We all have multiple cultural identities that influence our communication with others. Some people, especially those with identities that have been historically marginalized, are regularly aware of how their cultural identities influence their communication and influence how others communicate with them. Conversely, people with identities that are dominant or in the majority may rarely, if ever, think about the role their cultural identities play in their communication. We will discuss this in more detail in our chapter on culture and communication.
Summary
To review, communication will be defined in this book as the creation of shared meaning through symbolic processes. Communication was originally conceptualized as a linear process. The linear model viewed communication as a thing, like an information packet, that was sent from one person to another. From this view, communication would be defined as sending and receiving messages. The interaction model viewed communication as a process in which a message is sent and then followed by a reaction (feedback), which is then followed by another reaction, and so on. From this view, communication is defined as producing meaning with alternating roles between being a sender and a receiver.
The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create shared meaning with one another. Unlike the interaction model, which suggests that people alternate positions as sender and receiver, the transactional model suggests that we are simultaneously senders and receivers. In this model, we don’t just communicate to exchange messages; we communicate to create relationships, understand one another, shape our self-concepts, and engage with others in dialogue to create communities. In short, we don’t communicate about our realities; communication helps to construct our realities.
To fully understand the transactional nature of communication, scholars have identified several elements of this process (e.g., participants, message, context, feedback, noise, channel) that help us think about communication as a complex process of meaning-making with others.
Key Takeaways
- Communication models are not complex enough to truly capture all that takes place in a communication encounter, but they can help us examine the various steps in the process in order to better understand our communication and the communication of others.
- The Linear model of communication describes communication as a one-way process in which a sender encodes a message and transmits it through a channel to a receiver who decodes it. This model is too simple to characterize communication, but was an important seminal work that more robust models have expanded.
- The interaction model of communication describes communication as a two-way process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts. This model captures the interactive aspects of communication but represents the process as turn taking between sending and receiving, which is incomplete.
- The transactional model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators create meaning together. This model includes participants who are simultaneously senders and receivers and accounts for how communication constructs our realities, relationships, and communities.
Exercises
- Getting integrated: How might knowing the various components of the communication process help you in your academic life, your professional life, and your civic life?
- Use the transaction model of communication to analyze a recent communication encounter you had. Sketch out the communication encounter and make sure to label each part of the model (participants; message; channel; feedback; noise; contexts).
Page Attribution
This page is derived from the following sources. Modified text is licensed CC-BY 4.0 by Tresha Dutton, Whatcom Community College.
- An Introduction to Organizational Communication, licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, except where otherwise noted.
- Communication in the Real World by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License, except where otherwise noted.
REFERENCES
Barnlund, D. C., “A Transactional Model of Communication,” in Foundations of Communication Theory, eds. Kenneth K. Sereno and C. David Mortensen (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1970).
Berlo, D. (1960). The process of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The “concept” of communication. The Journal of Communication, 20, 201–210.
Ellis, R. and Ann McClintock, You Take My Meaning: Theory into Practice in Human Communication (London: Edward Arnold, 1990).
Rogers, E. M. (2001). The department of communication at Michigan State University as a seed institution for communication study. Communication Studies, 52, 234-248; pg. 234.
Schramm, W. (1954). How communication works. In W. Schramm (Ed.), The process and effects of communication (pp. 3-26). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Schramm, W., The Beginnings of Communication Study in America (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).
Shannon, C. and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
Thurlow, C., Laura Lengel, and Alice Tomic, Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet (London: Sage, 2004).
Learning Objectives
- Distinguish between intrapersonal and interpersonal communication.
- Define interpersonal communication
- Explain the characteristics of interpersonal communication
Now that we have a better understanding of Communication is defined, the transactional nature of communication and the overarching principles of communication, lets take a closer look at the focus of this class: Interpersonal Communication. To begin, lets distinguish between intrapersonal communication and interpersonal communication.
Intrapersonal Communication
Intrapersonal communication is communication with oneself using internal vocalization or reflective thinking. Like other forms of communication, intrapersonal communication is triggered by some internal or external stimulus. We may, for example, communicate with our self about what we want to eat due to the internal stimulus of hunger, or we may react intrapersonally to an event we witness. Unlike other forms of communication, intrapersonal communication takes place only inside our heads. The other forms of communication must be perceived by someone else to count as communication. So what is the point of intrapersonal communication if no one else even sees it?
Intrapersonal communication serves several social functions. Internal vocalization, or talking to ourselves, can help us achieve or maintain social adjustment (Dance 51). For example, a person may use self-talk to calm himself down in a stressful situation, or a shy person may remind herself to smile during a social event. Intrapersonal communication also helps build and maintain our self- concept. We form an understanding of who we are based on how other people communicate with us and how we process that communication intrapersonally. The shy person in the earlier example probably internalized shyness as a part of her self-concept because other people associated her communication behaviors with shyness and may have even labeled her “shy” before she had a firm grasp on what that meant. We will discuss self-concept much more in Chapter 2 "Communication and Perception", which focuses on perception. We also use intrapersonal communication or “self-talk” to let off steam, process emotions, think through something, or rehearse what we plan to say or do in the future. As with the other forms of communication, competent intrapersonal communication helps facilitate social interaction and can enhance our well-being. Conversely, the breakdown in the ability of a person to intrapersonally communicate is associated with mental illness (Dance 55).
Sometimes we intrapersonally communicate for the fun of it. I’m sure we have all had the experience of laughing aloud because we thought of something funny. We also communicate intrapersonally to pass time. I bet there is a lot of intrapersonal communication going on in waiting rooms all over the world right now. In both of these cases, intrapersonal communication is usually unplanned and doesn’t include a clearly defined goal (Dance 28). We can, however, engage in more intentional intrapersonal communication. In fact, deliberate self-reflection can help us become more competent communicators as we become more mindful of our own behaviors. For example, your internal voice may praise or scold you based on a thought or action.
Of the forms of communication, intrapersonal communication has received the least amount of formal study. It is rare to find courses devoted to the topic, and it is generally separated from the remaining four types of communication. The main distinction is that intrapersonal communication is not created with the intention that another person will perceive it. In all the other levels, the fact that the communicator anticipates consumption of their message is very important.
Interpersonal Communication
Interpersonal communication is the process of exchanging messages between people whose lives mutually influence one another in unique ways in relation to social and cultural norms. This definition highlights the fact that interpersonal communication involves two or more people who are interdependent to some degree and who build a unique bond based on the larger social and cultural contexts to which they belong. So a brief exchange with a grocery store clerk who you don’t know wouldn’t be considered interpersonal communication, because you and the clerk are not influencing each other in significant ways. Obviously, if the clerk were a friend, family member, coworker, or romantic partner, the communication would fall into the interpersonal category.
Interpersonal communication can be planned or unplanned, but since it is interactive, it is usually more structured and influenced by social expectations than intrapersonal communication. Interpersonal communication is also more goal oriented than intrapersonal communication and fulfills instrumental and relational needs. In terms of instrumental needs, the goal may be as minor as greeting someone to fulfill a morning ritual or as major as conveying your desire to be in a committed relationship with someone. Interpersonal communication meets relational needs by communicating the uniqueness of a specific relationship. When thinking about interpersonal communication, Adler and Proctor (2017) identify the following comment features of communication that makes it more interpersonal in nature:
1. Uniqueness: Our interpersonal interactions are characterized by unique, idiosyncratic rules as opposed to social norms. A nickname you have for a friend, or a code word that only you and your family use when communicating with each other are examples of uniqueness that characterize interpersonal communication.
2. Irreplaceability: Our interpersonal interactions express the feeling that the other person/people are not replaceable in our lives. If we lose a best friend, we dont simply substitute in a new best friend.
3. Interdependence: An interpersonal relationship, and thus the communication, reflects the connectedness we have with the other(s). Our lives and actions are woven together, thus discussion between a married couple about taking a job out of town would illustrate the interdependence of their relationship. Similarly, if our best friend is sad because their family pet passed away, we may feel sad too after talking with them. This is because our lives are interdependent and what happens to our friends can affect us as well.
4. Personal Disclosure: Interpersonal relationships are characterized by interactions where ALL the parties are disclosing personal, significant information with one another. In impersonal relationships, we offer superficial information (e.g., "How are you?", "Ok, and you?"). In our interpersonal relationships both/all parties would reveal how they are truly feeling (e.g., "Sad because my dog passed away and I'm anxious about the start of a new quarter of college.", "Ah, I'm so sorry to hear about your dog. I had my childhood dog pass away when I was 15 and it was a really hard time for me. I .....").
5. Intrinsic rewards: Communication in interpersonal relationships expresses our appreciation for the relationship because of who the other person is, not what they have to offer (i.e., extrinsic reward). In 8th grade, our "best friend" might have been the kid whose family had a swimming pool (extrinsic reward), whereas now our best friend is the person who we find to be honest and trustworthy (intrinsic characteristic).
Two additional features of interpersonal communication not discussed by Adler & Proctor include free will and addressability.
6. Free will: Interpersonal interactions reflect the free will of the other(s) to make decisions, form opinions, express feelings, etcetera. While we may like some of our families decisions, we may not like all of them. Encouraging and supporting others to share what they are truly thinking or feeling without fear of punishment (e.g., breaking-up, name calling) is an important feature of interpersonal communication.
7. Addressability: A final feature of interpersonal communication we will discuss this quarter is the aspect of adddressability. In the United States, we typically view the use of terms of address (e.g., first names, nick names) as a marker of an interpersonal relationship.
In the remaining chapters, we will look at influences that affect our interpersonal communication will others, and skills to help us communicate more effectively.
Key Takeaways
- Intrapersonal communication is communication with oneself and occurs only inside our heads.
- Interpersonal communication is communication between people whose lives mutually influence one another.