Chapter 1
Introduction to Communication
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
x Define what communication is and how the communication process works
x Explore how communication helps you achieve
x Explain how the study of communication developed
x Identify the characteristics of communication competence
x Learn the choices and connections underlying your communication
CHAPTER OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION
x Across all of these types and instances of communication, two things are important to
keep in mind:
1. The communication choices you make are connected to the outcomes that follow.
When you communicate well, you increase the likelihood of desirable outcomes,
2. Different types of communication are connected to each other in fundamental
ways. It involves presenting yourself to others, planning your messages, and using
language to convey your thoughts.
What is Communication? Lots of people believe that communication is just “common sense.”
But people are not born knowing how to communicate well. Instead, they become good
communicators by learning about communication concepts and theories, building skills, and
DEFINING COMMUNICATION
Communication is the process through which people use messages to generate meanings
within and across contexts, cultures, channels, and media.
x There are five features of communication:
1. Communication is a process that unfolds over time through a series of
2. People engaged in communication use messages to convey meaning. A message
is the “package” of information transported during communication. When people
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3. Communication occurs in a seemingly endless variety of contexts, or situations.
4. People communicate through various channels. A channel is the sensory
5. To transmit information, communicators use a broad range of media, or tools for
exchanging messages and can include texting, tweeting, posting, e-mailing,
Why We Communicate
Communication also helps you meet the following goals:
2. Instrumental goals are the practical objectives you want to achieve or tasks you
3. Relationship goals help you build, maintain, or terminate bonds with others.
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COMMUNICATION MODELS
x Communication scholars developed communication models to examine and describe how
communication works.
x Communication models represent a historical evolution of scholarly thought, from a
x Each communication model doesn’t necessarily represent good or bad ways of thinking
about communication. Instead, each offers a different way of identifying the important
elements affecting the communication process.
x Three examples of communication models include the following:
1. Linear communication model was the first formal model of communication and
was created more than sixty years ago by engineers at Bell Labs to explain how
information is transmitted across telephone lines. It views communication as an
activity in which information flows in one direction, from a starting point to an
end point.
The linear model contains several components:
o The message
o The channel
o The sender(s) who is the individual(s) who generates the
information to be communicated, packages it into a message, and
chooses one or more channels for sending it.
o The receiver is the person(s) for whom a message is intended.
Online communication is a type of communication that fits well within
this model. But the linear model doesn’t accurately explain other
2. Interactive communication model views communication as a process involving
senders and receivers, but suggests that communication is also influenced by
feedback and field of experience.
Feedback includes the verbal and nonverbal messages coming from
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3. Transactional communication model holds that communication participants
constantly exchange verbal and nonverbal messages and feedback to
collaboratively create meanings. It helps illustrate how we often build
communication collaboratively, rather than simply receiving or sending messages.
The transactional communication model intuitively captures encounters
that seem “interpersonal” in nature.
STUDYING COMMUNICATION
Now that you have a better understanding of what communication is, let’s look at how people
have studied communication throughout the ages and the types of communication that teachers
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A Brief History of Communication
The communication field has ancient roots, seemingly modern concepts evolved from the past.
Communication in Antiquity
x Communication is an academic discipline that goes back thousands of years and traverses
many different cultures.
x Egyptian sage Ptahhotep (2200 B.C.E.) wrote one of the earliest books that offered
suggestions for improving people’s communication by being truthful, kind, and tolerant
x Rhetoric is the theory and practice of persuading others through speech, and it became a
formal discipline of study in ancient Greece and Rome almost 2000 years after Ptahhotep.
x Socrates and his student Plato were among the first to debate the nature of rhetoric; they
believed
o That rhetoric was a practical skill that people could gain through experience.
x Aristotle, the best-known ancient Greek scholar, taught that effective persuasive speakers
should
o Demonstrate credibility
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x Cicero, an ancient Roman orator, also was interested in the study of rhetoric and noted
the following three practical objectives of public speaking:
o To instruct
x Cicero also outlined the five requirements of speech crafting and presentation still in use
today:
o Invention—reasoning out truth to make your case compelling
o Arrangement—organizing the information you want to present
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Communication in the Early 20th Century
x In the 1900s, however, scholars were stimulated by philosophical interest in the human
mind and behavior, and across a broad range of disciplines began studying forms of
communication other than rhetoric.
x Harold Lasswell was a political scientist that detailed four persuasive aims of
governmental propaganda:
o Create hatred against the enemy
x Elton Mayo, a Harvard business professor, examined the effects of coworker interactions
on productivity, giving rise to the human relations movement and the recognition that
supportiveness is crucial for competent workplace communication.
mostly owing to the use of mass media propaganda during the war. Each side had
harnessed film and radio to send messages on a massive scale to their populations,
convincing them that their cause was “just” and that the enemy was “evil.”
x By the early 1970s, dozens of communication and speech communication departments
existed and were teaching classes in the “traditional” areas of public speaking and
rhetoric, but also were introducing “new” areas such as mass media effects,
Types of Communication
Communication can be divided into four broad types:
1. Mediated communication is separated (“mediated”) by some type of
technological device. You use mediated communication when you make phone
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2. Interpersonal communication is communication between two people in which
the messages exchanged significantly impact their thoughts, emotions, behaviors,
3. Small group communication involves 3 or more interdependent persons who
share a common identity (such as membership in a team) and who communicate
4. Public communication or public speaking is the process of preparing and
delivering a message to an audience to achieve a specific purpose. Examples can
x Although these four types of communication differ in terms of their main purpose, the
number of people involved, and their nature (linear, interactive, transactional), they also
are connected to one another in that they all use or are affected by
o Messages to generate meanings.
o The communicators’ views of themselves and perceptions of others.
o The communicators’ cultural backgrounds and listening skills.
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COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE
Communication is a choice. How you choose to phrase your messages, display your facial
Understanding Communication Competence
x Communication competence means consistently communicating in the following three
ways:
1. Appropriateness is the degree to which your communication matches expectations
regarding how people should communicate. In any setting, norms govern what people
“should” and “shouldn’t” say, and how they “should” and “shouldn’t” act.
o Competent communicators understand when such norms exist and adapt their
communication accordingly.
o We judge how appropriate our communication is through self-monitoring: the
process of observing our own communication and the norms of the situation in
order to make appropriate communication choices.
b. Low self-monitors don’t assess their own communication or the
situation. They prefer encounters in which they can “act like
o One of the most important choices you make related to appropriateness is
when to use mobile devices and when to put them away. When you’re
interacting with people face-to-face, the priority should be your conversation
o Research documents that simply having cell phones out on a table—but not
using them—during face-to-face conversations significantly reduces
perceptions of relationship quality, trust, and empathy.
o Competent communicators know that overemphasizing appropriateness can
2. Effectiveness is the ability to use communication to accomplish the three previously
discussed types of goals:
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3. Ethics is the set of moral principles that guide your behavior toward others. You are
ethically obligated to avoid intentionally hurting others through your communication.
o Communication that’s intended to erode a person’s self-esteem, expresses
intolerance or hatred, intimidates or threatens others’ physical well-being, or
expresses violence is unethical and therefore incompetent.
PUTTING YOUR COMPETENCE INTO PRACTICE
x Competent communicators know how to translate their knowledge into communication
skills, repeatable goal-directed behaviors and behavioral patterns that they routinely
practice.
CHOICES AND CONNECTIONS
When you’re communicating, everything you say and do counts—and is connected to what comes
after. There are no “take–backs” or “do–overs.” That’s why it’s so important to know how to
make good communication choices.
Communication Choices
x Your communication choices affect the outcomes you experience. The fact that your
communication choices impact your outcomes means your communication is irreversible.
x Communication also involves interaction with others, and the choices they make
Communication Connections
x As you recognize the link between communication choices and outcomes, your