What is Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication?
In 1948, an American mathematician and Electronic engineer, Claude Shannon and American Scientist, Warren Weaver co-published an article in “Bell system Technical Journal” called “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” which also known as “Shannon-Weaver model of communication”. The model consists of 7 elements: sender, encoder, channel, decoder, receiver, noise and feedback. It is specially designed to develop the effective communication between sender and receiver.
Sender: Information source. Example: Customer
Encoder: Transmitter. Example: Phone
Channel: Mode of delivery. Example: Cable
Decoder: Reception. Example: Phone
Receiver: Destination. Example: Employee
Noise: Interference. Example: Thunder sound
Example: Customer (Sender) uses his phone (Encoder) to make a call (Channel) to the shop phone (Decoder) to make a reservation at 6:30pm. During the call, it was raining heavily with loud thunder sounds (noise) and the employee (Receiver) received the message as 6:00pm. The employee asked the customer (feedback) “Reservation at 6?”.
Due to the thunder sound, there is transmission error, the employee is unable to catch the message after 6.
Lacks in Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication
Communication can be done in many ways and more than one may be occurring at any given time.
· Verbal Communication (face-to-face, telephone, radio, television etc.) · Non-Verbal Communication (Body language, facial expression, tone of voice, emotional state etc.) · Written Communication (email, letters, books etc.) · Visualization (Graphs, charts etc.)
As can be seen, Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication is only applicable to verbal communication and written communication. Non-verbal communication and visualization were unable to use Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication to represent.
A nod, a smile, a frown, folded arms, head-scratching convey a message even though there is no verbal response. For example:
Both said sorry but who is more sincere? Person A is more sincere. With the hand on the head and the awkward smile, the message conveyed was Person A acknowledge his mistake and was apologetic about it. On the other hand, with his arm folded and a frown, Person B did not acknowledge his mistake and was seems forced to say sorry instead.
Another example, the difference between “hello!” and “HELLO!”. The tone of voice for both is different even though the words are the same. The first one is a casual and friendly greeting, on the other hand, the second one is a shouting, unfriendly hello.
Context refers to the setting in which communication takes place but context is missing from Shannon and Weaver’s (1954) model of communication. There are four types of context:
Physical Context – Environment. E.g. People speaks differently when they are in a church and a soccer game.
Cultural Context – Values, beliefs, lifestyles, and behavior. E.g.”OK” sign is okay in the American culture but it is seen as an obscene gesture in Brazil.
Social-psychological – intimacy level and formality of the exchange. E.g Conversation between husband and wife would not be handled the same as a conversation between employee and employer.
Temporal Context – position of a message within a sequence of conversational events. E.g. Speech becomes unintelligible if it is presented at an unnaturally slow or fast rate.
Shannon and Weaver’s (1954) model of communication has another problem is that feedback did not go through any channel nor encoder and decoder. As can be seen from diagram above, feedback goes straight from the receiver to the sender without any noise interference, usage of any channel and encoder and decoder.
Conclusion
Shannon and Weaver’s (1954) model of communication is not complete. Non-verbal communication and visualization is also form of communication but it was not included in the model. A picture speaks a thousand words, a gesture and facial expression also convey messages, context also affects communication.
Reference
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/what-is-communication.html https://www.communicationtheory.org/shannon-and-weaver-model-of-communication/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3340429/#R128 https://humancommkj.weebly.com/context.html
PRISCILLA 
Hi Priscilla, I agree that the Shannon and Weaver’s model does not take into account the areas of non-verbal communication and visualization. The examples you have used to illustrate both the need of non-verbal communication and the context concepts are clear and easy to understand. I strongly believe that without these two key criteria, there will be a frequent occurrence of miscommunication. Your post is well thought out and well structured, I look forward to reading your next post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Priscilla,
I do agree that the Shannon and Weaver model of communication is not complete as it does not include non-verbal communication. Your explanation into non-verbal communication was also interesting to read as it gave me more insight into the different kinds of communication as well as the context that was missing from the Shannon and Weaver model. An improvement I can suggest to you would be including a communication model that could be used as an improvement to the Shannon and Weaver model of communication.
Lynne
LikeLike
Hi Priscilla,
Agree on the opinion that the Shannon and Weaver model of communication is more suited towards verbal communication and written communication. For Verbal communication, the context of the conversation with the additional expressions adds towards to conversation that may give a different message to the other party, showing if he is more sincere about his apologies.
On your 2nd example regarding the 2 tones of voice meaning 2 different meanings depending on the context, also can have even more layers of expressions depending on the relationship of the 2 parties, sometimes it may look like a unfriendly comment from a 3rd party it could also be a sarcastic remark from a friend to another.
LikeLike
Hi Priscilla!
I agree with you that the Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication is not complete as it does not take into consideration the non-verbal communication and visualization. I appreciate that you included examples to explain non-verbal communication. Thank you for explaining about the different types of context that is an important part of communication. You have very clearly explained what Shannon and Weaver’s model all is about and the important aspects of communication that it lacks in. However, I was looking forward to seeing another communication model that you think is a better model than this. Overall, it is a very well written blog post. Looking forward to reading you next blog post!
LikeLike
Hi Priscilla. The Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication was straightforward. I liked how you added many illustrations for the reader to understand this model. Making it easier to understand how communication happens in real life. I do believe that the Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication is not complete. Just like what you mentioned, non-verbal and visualisation is a form of communication but it not included in the model. Hence, it would be great if you could show us an alternative or better model of communication. Great blog post!
LikeLike