Understanding the Communication Process

Understanding the communication process will lead to better interactions with others, whether on a personal or professional level. Communication process involves the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. It is a process that shares a common set of elements and follows a few key steps.

What is the communication process?

Communication is the process of sending and receiving messages through verbal or non-verbal means, including both spoken and written communication. A message is a piece of information conveyed by the sender to the receiver through a particular medium or channel. Communication skills are an essential tool for anyone to possess in any walk of life, be it professional or personal. This interaction can take place between two people or within a large group.

The communication process is the steps we take in order to successfully communicate. There are five essential components to the communication process: context, sender, receiver, message and channel. Giving good feedback makes the exchange easier for all parties.

What are the 5 components of the Communication Process?

The communication process is the guide toward realizing effective communication. It is through the communication process that the sharing of a common meaning between the sender and the receiver takes place.

To be effective, communication must include 5 components:

1. Sender

2. Receiver

3. Channel

4. Message

5. Feedback

What are the basic steps of Communication Process?

The basic communication process consists of three steps:

1. A sender transmits a message to a receiver.

2. The receiver interprets the message sent by the sender and assigns meaning to it.

3. The receiver provides feedback to the sender on whether he or she understood the message exactly as intended, thus completing the communication process.

What are the Modes of Communication evolve over time?

Humans have made continuous progress in the modes of communication over time, first were written letters, then fax, then pagers, then telephone, then mobile phones in which one could talk to a person sitting as far away from a place as overseas.

What are the 8 steps of the Communication Process ?

Communication is a major part of our life. Here are the 8 stages of the communication process and how we implement the process of communication in our day-to-day life.

1. Sender

The sender of the message who initiates the communication of the information to the receiver. He/she is the source.

2. Receiver

This is the person who is receiving the message standing or finishing last in the series and for whom the message was sent by the sender.

Once the receiver receives the message and understands it in its intended way, only then has the objective of communication been completed.

3. Message

It is the thought or information formed by the sender and then intended to be communicated for further use.

4. Channel.

This is the method of communication in which a message is sent and delivered. The message can be delivered in any medium whether it is oral (verbal), written or demonstrated (non-verbal).

5. Feedback

Once the receiver has confirmed to the sender that he has received the message, it is generally understood that the communication process is complete.

This stage is where further information or comments about something that you, as the sender, have sent is given to you communicating how good or bad the communication was. Feedback reviews the response or reaction of the receiver to the sender’s message.

Feedback is the essence of communication and it is the final step of the communication process. Without feedback from the receiver, the communication process is incomplete. This feedback may be a simple oral (verbal) or written message or in the form of visible reactions (non-verbal)

Feedback has many important purposes such as:

▪ helping to facilitate the objective of the communication

▪ problem solving and decision making

▪ to exchange Ideas and opinions

▪ create better understanding between sender and receiver

▪ to evaluate the receiver’s attitude

▪ a final component and one of the most important factors in the process of communication

▪ to evaluate the effectiveness of communication

▪ feedback can be negative or positive

6. Encoding

This step consists of converting the idea, information or messages into the delivery or communication.

7. Decoding

In this step where the message received is decoded to understand it. The message received is analysed and interpreted so that it is correctly understood by the receiver as the sender intended.

8. Noise

It refers to any unintended distraction that is caused by the sender’s message or the receiver’s understanding of the message during the communication process.

For example:

Poor network connections, background noise, or misunderstanding of messages.