jump to content of this page Bized logo linked to homepage
You are here: Home > Educators > Level 2 Business and Economics Education > Business Communications > The Basic Communication Model

Educators
Bookmark and Share

Advanced

Business Communications

The Basic Communication Model

To try and help us understand the basic principle of communication, we can look at a diagrammatic representation of communication as follows:

A diagram showing the flow of communication, from source to receiver then back again

The source is the person or group or organisation sending out the message/information.

The medium: The message is given out in some sort of medium - this is the means by which the message is sent. This can be either:

  • Oral - spoken
  • Via electronic means - e-mail, fax or through the Web for example
  • Telephone
  • Paper based - letter, memo, scribbled note, poster etc.
  • Image/visual
  • Sound
  • Silent communication - smell, touch, body language, colour, how letters or numbers are presented. For example, Ford's new Mondeo car has a number of models within the range, including the Titanium and Titanium X - which do you think is the better model?

The Receiver - the person, group or organisation that is receiving the information.

Feedback - The source will not know whether the communication that they have sent has been successful unless they receive some feedback in the form of some action or changed behaviour.

'Noise' and Barriers to Communication

The problem is that communication is rarely as simple as this model would suggest. There are lots of different types of medium to send a message in and the way that the receiver perceives the message might be very different to that which the sender intended. Have you ever received a text message from a friend that you thought meant something different to what your friend intended?

When messages are sent, the source has to try to understand what they are trying to say. This might be interpreted differently by the receiver. Messages are said to experience 'noise' along the way - the more noise there is, the less likelihood there is of the message being received properly. This represents a barrier to communication. Barriers to communication can take many forms, which include:

  • Language
  • Technical content
  • Lack of understanding of what the receiver wants or needs
  • Inadequate feedback
  • Emotional interference - can you really send out a clear message when you are upset, for example?
  • The degree of knowledge and expertise of the sender and the receiver
  • The quality of the information sent
  • The use of an inappropriate medium
  • Lack of trust or honesty in the source
  • Cultural differences
  • Poor listening skills
  • The position or status of the source

As a result, our communication model might look more like this:

A diagram showing the flow of communication interrupted by noise, causing a break in feedback process

Task:

One popular way to show how communication can sometimes go badly wrong is to play the game called 'Chinese Whispers'.

Your teacher will give one person a sentence written on a piece of paper. That person whispers the content of the sentence to the person next to them and they must whisper the sentence to the next person and so on round the whole class. When it has got round the whole class, the person who is last writes down what they have just heard on the board.The first person then writes down on the board what they originally had written on the piece of paper that your teacher gave to you. How different is the sentence?

Note: The use of the phrase 'Chinese whispers' might also contain a message - why did the name originate? If you were Chinese, how would you react to the game being called this?

| Index | Previous | Next |