What is Communication?

Communication is the process of sending, receiving and understanding messages. This process can occur between people, animals or machines. An example of person-to-person communication would be sign language. An example of machine-to-person communication could be a fire alarm.

List as many examples of ways to communicate in the following ways as possible:

• Yes, one may argue that people are technically considered animals, but since humans communicate in very different ways than most animals, we'll keep them separate.

  person to person
• person to animal
• animal to person
• animal to animal
• person to machine
• machine to person
• animal to machine
• machine to animal
• machine to machine

Communication follows a general model. It involves a someone sending a message(input), through a method, such as talking(process) to someone else(receiver). Usually that message experiences some type of interference along the way before the message is delivered to the receiver. For example, imagine being in a foreign country and you broke a law, but didn't know it. A policeman approaches you and tries to explain to you what you did, but he doesn't speak your language. No matter how loudly he shouts at you, you won't understand him(Just get really scared). The difference in the two languages you speak is interference. Who is providing the input? Who is the receiver getting the output? So what if you looked at the police officer strangely and shook your head saying "I don't understand you!" You would be providing feedback to the police officer, or sender, that helps him to understand a better way of delivering the message to you(hopefully not by throwing you in jail!). Below is a diagram of the "Systems Model of Communication."