Models of Communication

The Transmission Model

There are two types of communication models discussed in chapter one, the first model is the transmission model. This model is based on the fact that transportation plays a vital role in our ability to communicate and interact with one anther. The Transmission model is the more prevalent model of communication in society today.

• "Communication is the process of moving messages from a sender through a medium to a receiver."
• Source -> Message -> Receiver
  

The transmission model of communication is based on the interpersonal context with which the message is transported from one person to another. This model was also the basis of Harold Laswell's famous description of the study of mass communication. Laswell described communication in a series of questions:

• Who/says What/to Whom/through what Channel/and with what Effect?

The Columbine High School shooting of 1999 is a good example of this model in action. Adults argued that Marilyn Manson and the makers of video games and violent music were having this horrible effect on the youths of our country.

The Cultural Model

The second model of communication is the cultural model. The cultural model of communication draws ties between the process of communication and our culture. Culture is one of the most complex yet powerful concepts in modern thinking. Raymond Williams has traced the changing meaning of this term:

• "Culture was not a response to the new methods of production, the new Industry alone. It was concerned, beyond these, with the new kinds of personal and social relationships: again, both as a recognition of practical separation and as an emphasis of alternatives."

The cultural model is harder for people to grasp because they have their own personal culture set in stone and taking a look at what others' culture contains and how it affects their communication is something humans are not good at doing. A bit of ethnocentrism comes into play. What the cultural model discusses is how we all take our own personal culture into account when communication and our culture both directly and indirectly influences the way we communicate.

The September 11, 2001 attacks on the world trade centers is used as an example to contrast the two models because both of them, the transmission model and the cultural model, are used in our means of communication when this day is being discussed. We have what we all saw on the television screen that day, but we also have our own personal beliefs on why this happened and what caused this to happen.