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Communication Theory: Definition, Framework and Theories

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The communication theory is a simple statement proposed by S. F. Scudder that all living beings communicate through different communication methods.

What is Communication Theory?

Every living organism communicates to another living organism of his kind through a unique communication method. For example, animals communicate with each other but use different sounds; humans interact with each other with the help of different words, letters, symbols, pictures, or gestures.

Communication Theory

The need for communication is present in every living being, and without communication, we would be like bricks lying around – without movement and life.

The framework of communication theory

The following are a few of the points of the communication theory framework.

1. Mechanical

This point says that communication is a mechanical process that passes from one location to the other. It is a well-established fact that the one end is the sender from which the communication originates, and the receiver is where the communication terminates.

2. Psychological

According to this view, communication is considered a flow of feelings, thoughts, and information from the sender to the receiver. However, a psychological viewpoint also believes that communication flows from one point to the other that is from the sender to the receiver.

This viewpoint also takes into consideration the reactions of the receiver after the communication is received and understood.

3. Social

Communication is a social process since it involves more than one person trying to communicate with another person. The social point of view says that communication is dependent on the content or message. Not only “what” but also “how” a message is communicated essential.

4. Systemic

This viewpoint says that communication is unique and dependent on the interpretation of the individual. The receiver is responsible for deriving his conclusion irrespective of the meaning with which the sender has sent.

5. Critical

This point of view says that communication is a medium in which a person can express himself or exert authority in a group of people.

Theories of Communication

framework of communication theory

1. Classical Theories

Authoritarian theory

This theory originated from Plato’s authoritarian philosophy, and it stated that only a few men should be allowed to manage the state. It also says that mass media is expected to follow the directives of the country even though the state does not control the mass media directly.

The thought of freedom was restricted by a few people from the ruling class or upper class in western Europe under the same Authoritarian approach. Their primary concern was the emerging middle class, which necessitated them to take steps to control speech freedom.

The term authoritarian itself explains the inclusion of authority in communication, which was regulated and suppressed. Ultimately and to no one’s surprise, this resulted in the emergence of dictatorship.

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The fact that a nation is more important than everything else was used to establish supremacy over the press.

Free Press theory

This theory is also termed Libertarianism, and it is based on a simple principle that justifies its name, which is the absence of restraint. The free press originated in the 17th century when the printing press was discovered newly, and printing was relatively inexpensive.

Government taxes were not welcomed by libertarian, and people’s opinion was prioritized over government decisions.

Social responsibility theory

Since many people criticized the free press theory, the social responsibility theory was born. They found that free press theory was outdated and should be re-invented. The social responsibility theory was initiated in America in 1949.

The approach is based mainly on the media since people found out that only a few people were benefited because of libertarianism theory, while most of them were not. There were many means by which accountability was held like radio, television, etc.

This theory emphasizes the responsibility of the media towards society.

2. Communist theory

The basis of this theory was the ideologies of Karl Marx. This theory said that the doctrines of the aristocratic class or the ruling class are the ruling ideas. It was Lenin who first thought of communist theory since he believed that the freedom of the press should be controlled.

Education was considered to be the primary and the only purpose of Mass media. It was thought that the media should educate the people rather than trying to give out information. Media was seen as a means of knowledge promotion.

3. Development communication theory

The primary ideology which initiated the rise of this theory stated that communication is the only source of development, and without communication, there would be no development whatsoever.

Capitalism was legalized under the four classic series. But in the case of development communication theory, the media is supposed to undertake the role of developmental programs for society.

Apart from society’s development, there can be no other significant role for the media, which was emphasized by this theory. However, UNESCO did not support this theory since development is often equated to government propaganda, according to this theory.

4. Hypodermic needle or magic bullet or stimulus-response theory

This theory came into existence during the first world war. The real power of media was described by this theory, which said that mass media has enormous control and influence over the mass audience.

This theory also supported the fact that mass media can alter the thoughts and behaviors of the people. Selective exposure and selective perception the two main reasons responsible for the effects of mass communication.

The tendency of people that what is the percentage by which people expose themselves to mass media is called selective exposure. And the inclination of people to assign a meaning to mass communication according to their pre-notions is called selective perception and retention.

5. Standpoint theory

Every person belongs to a different social category. The standpoint theory, supporting this, states that every person has a different rank in the social group. This results in every person having different views resulting from a different experience.

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This individual’s perspective provides only a very close look at the social structure. People in the lower category of social hierarchy tend to have a better view and a better understanding of the social system than people who are up in the hierarchy.

6. Actor-network theory

This theory is commonly abbreviated as ANT. This theory suggests that both the actor and the network are responsible for success. According to this theory, both human and nonhuman factors are equally accountable for technological innovation and the knowledge creation process.

The actor-network theory primarily focuses on the forming of the network. Once these networks are formed, the Actor-network theory focuses on how they can contribute to success.

7. Adaptive structuration theory

This theory is entirely based on the structures formed because of the rules and regulations of groups and organizations. Once the structures are built, they become sound social systems that have a life of their own.

These structures are directly affected by the decision making process.

8. Cognitive dissonance theory

The psychological conflict, which is the result of contradictory thoughts, is called cognitive dissonance. For example, a person likes a phone but does not support the price of the product.

The theory states that every person will look for balanced beliefs. This is why to avoid cognitive dissonance; a person will refrain from hearing any contrasting views to his views.

9. Constructivism

Cognitively sophisticated people will be successful communicators since they can create advanced messages for other people. They also can target and perceive more than one communication goal successfully.

10. Confirmation bias

Every person understands and interprets the world differently. This theory explains the reason why people see the world differently. The thoughts or information which reinforces the beliefs of the people are accepted, and the others are rejected.

11. Cultivation theory

This theory believes that most of us believe today that media influences a person’s sense of reality.  Most of the people are unable to acquire experience by the direct medium. For example, you cannot be present at every news that is happening around the world.

Therefore this theory suggests that the viewpoint that you have developed is from mediated sources and not by direct experience. Thus your thoughts are influenced.

12. Face negotiation Theory

The differences in conflicts between individualistic and collectivist cultures are highlighted in the face negotiation theory.

As the name suggests, the individualistic approach tries to protect the self and adopt dominating styles of conflict. Still, collectivist culture values the group and fosters the conflict style, which integrates or avoids to give others a mutual face.

13. Spiral of Silence theory

This theory suggests that the media publish opinions, and people modify or adjust their views to avoid being isolated. People who think that their opinions will get accepted will voice their opinions freely, and people who do not express their opinions suppress them. These people, with a suppressed point of view, are called minorities.

14. Diffusion of innovation theory

Neil Gross and Bryce Ryan developed this theory in the year 1943. This theory stresses the process by which different channels communicate new ideas to different people. This model also describes various factors that influence people’s thoughts and actions about the original design or technology.

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15. Theory of planned behavior

This theory states that personal judgments and social considerations influence a person’s intentions to execute a particular action or behavior. The Third element, which affects a person’s intention, is perceived control. This judgment states that how people perceive a particular behavior is easy or difficult to perform.

16. Agenda-setting theory

As the name suggests, the agenda is decided and then set. This theory believes that it is the responsibility of Mass media to determine what should be considered as worthy of news and what should not be for the general population.

This theory also goes on to state how much attention a particular news story should receive. The term salience transfer is used to determine the agenda transferring ability of the media.

17. Theory of reasoned action

This theory considers the fact that a person’s intentions can influence his behaviors. There are two reasons for this which tell a person if he should perform particular behavior or not: personal judgments and social considerations. Both of these elements are also repeated in the theory of planned behavior.

Personal judgment is how a particular person perceives the action, and social concerns state what someone believes that others should do.

18. Media dependency theory

This theory states that people are entirely dependent on the media to reach their goals and meet their needs. They believe that the media interacts with people to create interests, needs, and motives.

The amount of dependency which is influenced depends on the number and centrality of the information.

19. Communication Accommodation Theory

Often it is seen that people change their communication or adjust their style of communication with other people. Communication accumulation theory believes the same. The changes in communication may be in verbal or non-verbal forms.

This is done by convergence and divergence. Some individuals make use of convergence to seek social approval and also focus on matching their communication style to that of the person with whom they are speaking.

On the other hand, divergence is primarily used to highlight the differences in the group. Often, a deviation is used by influential ethnic people or groups of racial pride.

Conclusion

Therefore, communication theories are an essential part of the communication process as well as the society since many theories are a reflection of society.

The existence of different types of communication theories suggests variation in the application of communication in society as well as differences in society.

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Schramm's model of communicationSchramm’s Model of Communication | Elements, Advantages & Limitations Communication cycleCommunication Cycle: Definition, Barriers and Importance Communication modelsAll the Communication Models in Businesses Explained What is communication Definition: Communication is a way by which meaningful messages can be conveyed across people to convey ideas. Any kind of medium may be used by communication to convey the message. Explanation: Technically, communication is defined as the process of understanding and sharing meaning. Here, the process is any kind of activity that does not remain constant. It changes all the time and cannot be defined. Therefore the concept of the process has a change in feedback, change in perspective, or any other relevant change which impacts the existing state of affairs. For example, when you travel to the office from home, your process changes because your perspective changes since you interact with a different set of people. The next part of the definition of communication is understanding. Understanding means to comprehend or interpret. You will be able to understand a movie more clearly than merely watching non-moving pictures without explanation or sound. The last part of the definition is sharing. When you do something together with one or more people, then it can be termed as sharing. Thus communication is a culmination of all of these components to form a comprehensible, knowledgeable, and informational activity to convey information, messages, or any other relevant thoughts to a receiver or a group of receivers. Importance of communication Practically the world runs because of communication. The importance of communication cannot be stressed enough in our day to day's work. If it were not for communication, then we would be back in Neanderthal times. Right from our home to our workplace, there is communication everywhere. From a song, speech to site head nod, or handshake, different forms of communication are used throughout the day without you realizing it. Communication makes conveying the thoughts easier and helps to understand the perspective of another person. Learning would stop without communication since you cannot teach anyone without the use of text, pictures, sound, or sign language. There would be no exchange of ideas or thoughts without communication, and businesses would not be able to sustain, and neither could people. Elements of Communication It is essential to understand the vital components of communication to understand the process of communicating clearly. Following are eight different components of communication 1. Source The source is the creator of the message. The source initiates the message and sends it to the sender. A person talking to a group of people can be considered as a source of speech. The source conveys the message with the help of verbal as well as non-verbal communication. Sometimes written and visual types of communication may also be involved. The primary objective of the source is to convey the thoughts or ideas they have to the receiver. 2. Message The actual context of communication is a message. The message is the formalized structure of communication. A group of pictures may be kept together to convey a story, or a couple of letters are put together to convey a message. As explained above, the message's intention is dependent on not only the words of the message but also the tone, voice modulation, and manner in which the messages are conveyed to the other person. Different elements come into play in various types of communication. For example, tone, voice modulation will matter in verbal communication, while the grammar and punctuation matter in written communication. On the other hand, in the case of non-verbal communication, your gestures and body language matter while in the case of visual communication, the pictures, its settings, and visual quality will matter. 3. Channel The method in which the messages are communicated from one point to the other is called a channel. Channels are essential to convey the message from the source to the destination. If the message is not transmitted, then the desired action will not be taken, and the communication process will not be valid. 4. Receiver The receiver is the one who receives the message from the sender. The receiver can be considered as the termination point of the communication process or originating source for the feedback process of the communication. The receiver can see, feel, hear, touch, or appropriately analyze the message sent by the sender depending on the type of communication. Both the receiver and the sender must be on similar lines so they can understand the message because if the sender and receiver are not able to understand each other, then the entire purpose of the communication fails. There could be many differences between the sender and receiver, and for optimum communication to happen, those differences should be as low as possible. 5. Feedback After the receiver receives the message, the receiver comprehends the message. He tries to make meaning out of it and understand it. Once he understands, then the feedback is sent from the receiver to the sender. During this time, the receiver becomes the sender, and the sender becomes the receiver because feedback travels from receiver to sender. The existence of feedback suggests that communication is a two-way process. As much as the sender wants to convey a message to the receiver, the receiver also wants to convey back message to the sender. This feedback will be based on the message which is initially sent from the sender and will be sort of an answer to that message. 6. Environment The atmosphere in which we receive the message is called an environment. The environment may include but is not limited to the surrounding equipment, objects, climate, and other things that are present when the process of communication happens. The external surroundings in which we stand to talk to another person can also be termed as the environment. A theatre packed with an audience can also be considered as the environment. Every environment may have some requirements for looks. For example, going to a party will have a dress code, while coming to an office with a formal dress code. In such cases, not only the dressing but also communication depends on the environment. It is essential to understand your environment before you start communicating. 7. Context The context is where the setting or scene of communication takes place. For example, business discussions such as presentations take place in a group of people. Therefore the context for such a discussion is formal. On the other hand, communication with family members is usually casual. Context is about how people expect you to be in specific settings. Typically environmental cues are used to create those expectations. 8. Interference Interference is another term for noise that is present in the communication process. The primary function of noise is to block or create an obstacle in communication so that the intended message is either half reached or not reached at all to the receiver. For example, if a baby cries in a theatre during the climax of a movie, your attention is disturbed. The intended message of the movie does not reach you. While this is an example of external noise, there is also an internal noise that is present in ourselves. Thoughts that are occupied in your mind when you're doing work is called psychological noise. These thoughts interrupt your work more often than you can imagine. If not for these psychological interferences, all of us would have been productive at least ten times more than we are right now. Another type of noise is when the message is communicated to you clearly, but your mind interprets it differently. For example, an invitation card says, "Black tie only." A significant interference would be detected in the person if he wore 'only' a black tie to the party. Types of communication Following are different types of communications that are observed around us: a. Verbal Communication As the name suggests, verbal communication is the one in which you talk. It is the most profoundly used type of communication among all other types. It is used while talking in person, on the phone, on a video call, and practically everywhere. For mute people, sign language is used as a method of verbal communication for them. It is recommended to use different voice modulations when talking to different people. For example, the voice modulation would not matter if you speak with friends, but it would matter when you're talking to your boss or your colleagues at work. The tone of your verbal communication, the pitch, the words, all of them matter. Also, all of these elements of verbal communication change with the person. For example, the pitch, words, and tone of your communication with your mother would be different than with your customer. In verbal communication, it matters what you say, but it equally matters how you say it. And examples of tone and pitch would be like the sentence Hey, what are you doing here? This sentence can be said and meant in 6 different ways depending on where the emphasis is given, try saying the sentence while emphasizing on different words. Verbal communication is also essential in a business where you have to write emails and convey the message to your client, design, advertisement, marketing strategy, and other crucial aspects of the business. 2. Nonverbal communication As the name suggests, this type of communication is primarily concerned with body language. The non-verbal communication is used to convey information that cannot be sent by verbal communication. This type of communication is essential when you have to send a lot of things in a short time without the use of words. Sometimes non-verbal communication may be unintentional. For example, a frown while talking to an irritating colleague even though you are trying to speak politely. Other aspects of non-verbal communication are gestures and body language. A handshake will convey much of the first impression of a person than anything else, or someone can understand a lot from the walk or posture of a person. The way a person sits uses hand gestures, and facial expressions can determine more than verbal communication. Some researches have concluded that communication happens more by non-verbal means than by verbal means. Therefore about 70% of what you want to say does not come out of your mouth, but your nonverbal communication reflects it. 3. Written communication When you write the words conveying the message to another person, then it is termed as written communication. Different alphabets, numbers, symbols are used to write messages. Writing is present in every aspect of modern-day communication. There are blogs, letters, advertisements, audiovisual information, all of which require the use of written communication or letters. Written communication is utilized in public applications, like writing traffic information. For illiterate people, a combination of pictures and words is used to convey information. In business terms, a common language is used throughout the organization. Since most of the companies have become multinationals or intend to become one, English is their preferred language since it is easy to convey in offices and branches worldwide. 4.Visual communication As the name suggests, visual communication primarily happens in the form of pictures, photographs, videos, and other types. Sometimes, a text may be used along with images to convey the information better, or sometimes there may be no text. However, visual communication is considered more useful than other forms since a picture conveys a thousand words. Other times, visual aids are utilized with textual information to discuss or present a specific topic. Both of them, in combination, have a great impact on the customer. Most of the social media platforms like Instagram, youtube primarily depend on visuals. However, it cannot be emphasized enough that always consider your audience before deciding any mode of communication. For example, using visuals in a metro train will not be a good idea since audio communication will make more impact over there. On the other hand, using visual communication on a mobile app would be a better idea. Conclusion: Therefore, communication is a vital aspect of our existence. Using appropriate communication in appropriate settings is essential for effective communication. This can be achieved by being mindful of different elements of communication.What is Communication? 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About Hitesh Bhasin

I love writing about the latest in marketing & advertising. I am a serial entrepreneur & I created Marketing91 because i wanted my readers to stay ahead in this hectic business world. You can follow me on Facebook. Let's stay in touch :)

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