The Process of Communication

So, how does communication actually take place? Communication is a simple process with many complexities involved. Babies communicate from the day they are born. Animals communicate with each other constantly. Some pet animals also communicate to their masters. In spite of all the complexities involved, communication is fairly easy. A working knowledge of the steps is essential for one to be able to communicate effectively. Effective communication follows the following steps:

• Origin of thought: The sender of the message needs to first have a thought originating in their mind. Without a well defined thought, the sender can in no way convey the same to the receiver(s). A person can make an attempt to communicate despite having no clear idea about the same. That gives rise to a certain ‘barrier’ in communication. We shall deal with barrier at a later stage. So, the first step at effective communication is having a clear notion of the thought or idea to be conveyed.
  

• Encoding: Encoding basically means transferring the thoughts and ideas into words or language. Linguistically speaking, a language is referred to as a code. So, just like one would embed secret messages in a code, normal communication also encodes the thoughts and ideas into a language. The only difference being that this type of code is not secret and a vast majority of people have access to the ‘key’ that can decode the message. Encoding involves using signs and symbols that will have the same meaning in the mind of the receiver as was prevalent in the mind of the sender.

• Channel: The channel basically means the route. There are a variety of options that one can use to send a message across. One can write it down for someone to read, one can say it out aloud, one can use certain non verbal means of communication (actions, gestures, etc.), one can also use visual or electronic medium to send the message. All this depends on certain factors like the nature of the message, the urgency or the importance, the expense of sending the message, the number of receivers and so on.

•  Decoding: This is exactly the opposite of encoding. In decoding, the receiver transfers the words and sentences into thoughts and ideas. Depending on the care taken by the sender, one can find whether the receiver has received the same thought that the sender wanted to send across.

• Feedback: The last step in the process of communication is feedback. In fact, feedback completes the process of communication. No message can be ever complete without it eliciting a response from the receiver. The feedback maybe verbal or nonverbal, immediate or delayed. It varies across different situations and from person to person. However, communication is considered effective only when feedback is received by the original sender of the message. Hence, feedback is a very essential component in the process of communication. 
  The following video makes the process of communication very clear 

         Keep visiting for the next post dealing with the ‘elements of communication’