The communication model
The Shannon and Weaver model completed by feedback, Lasswell's five questions, Jakobson's six functions of language and the three families of noise: finding where a work exchange broke down and how to recover it.
- 26 cards
- 5 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
- Understand
A few cards from the deck
Feedback: what is it?
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Information that travels back from the receiver to the sender and shows how the message was received and understood.
An "OK" or a read receipt proves the message arrived, not that it was understood. A rephrasing, a question or an action that matches the request is real feedback.
An urgent instruction goes out in an email that nobody reads before the evening. Which of Lasswell's questions is at fault?
- Through which channel?
- Who?
- Says what?
- With what effect?
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Through which channel?
The message and the sender are fine; the choice of channel does not suit the urgency. The missed effect is the consequence, not the cause: a call or a direct message would have worked.
In the Shannon and Weaver model, the sender turns the message into signals: this is …; the receiver does the reverse, ….
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In the Shannon and Weaver model, the sender turns the message into signals: this is encoding; the receiver does the reverse, decoding.
For the exchange to succeed, sender and receiver must share the same code. Without a common code, decoding produces something other than what was encoded.
Noise (in communication): what is it?
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Anything that disturbs or distorts a message between sender and receiver, whether it comes from equipment, from the meaning of words or from state of mind.
There are three families: technical (a microphone cutting out), semantic (an unknown acronym) and attitudinal (prejudice, hostility). Each is handled differently.
A technician writes to an accountant: "DNS is no longer resolving". She replies "OK" and does nothing. Which fix rescues the exchange?
- Send the same sentence again with the urgency in capitals
- Attach the technical documentation of the DNS protocol to the email
- Take the "OK" as confirmation and move on
- Say it again without jargon and ask what she understood
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Say it again without jargon and ask what she understood
Two faults add up: the code is not shared ("DNS") and the "OK" is an acknowledgement mistaken for feedback. Restating in plain words and asking her to rephrase fixes both.