Part 2: Development Communication: Applied Communication at the Grassroots
Dr. Abe V. Rotor
Afro-Asian Institute, Tel-Aviv, Israel
(From the Lectures of Dr. Chanoch Jacobsen, Professors Shimon Zuckerman, Shulamit Elfassy, Michel Isaak, and Gershon Tabor)
Israel: Wailing Wall; old city of Jerusalem
Students from different countries attend a course in Development
Communications at Afro-Asian Institute in Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1992.
“A genuine meeting of minds may result if both parties in interest will concede to the other side the honor of believing, at least as an initial assumption, that its point of view is not merely vicious or silly.”
- George H. Sabine
The four basic elements in every communication process
Stage 1: Creation
The person as the communication source conceives of an idea which he wants to transmit to someone else. Clear yourself about what you want to communicate. Only when the source knows clearly what he wants to communicate is it likely that the receiver will understand him.
Stage 2: Encoding
Meanings and ideas are structures of the mind. Encode your ideas into symbols which you are sure will be correctly understood by the receiver.
Stage 3: Transmission
An idea or meaning which has been encoded into symbols is called a message. The word symbols have to be either spoken, or written and displayed; the gestures have to be shown; the music has to be performed, and so on with other symbols.
Stage 4: Reception
Environmental conditions have a direct bearing on fidelity. But beyond that, fidelity depends on which and how many of the receiver’s five senses are activated to receive the message: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling. (The fidelity of our senses is in this order.)
Stage 5: Decoding
The receiver, having received the encoded message, must now decode it in order to comprehend its meaning. One can not decode a message whose symbols one does not recognize. It does happen that we receive messages which seem incomprehensible to us, as when someone speaks to us in language we do not know. In such cases we usually try to communicate to the source that we do not understand him
Stage 6: Assimilation (final stage in the simple one-way communication process)
In order to “ make sense” of the decoded message, to understand it, the receiver must relate it to what he already knows and assimilate it within the total information available to him. The more life experience a person has had, the more likely it is that his store of knowledge will contain elements with which he can make sense out of a new ideas and meanings.
To summarize, the communication process involves four basic elements and six stages.
- The communication source, the person whose ideas or meanings are to be transferred to another person.
- communication receiver, the person/s to whom the ideas or meaning are to be transferred.
- message which can be transferred from the source to the receiver.
- the message has to travel through a channel or medium in order to successfully make the passage from source to receiver.
Stage 1: Creation
The person as the communication source conceives of an idea which he wants to transmit to someone else. Clear yourself about what you want to communicate. Only when the source knows clearly what he wants to communicate is it likely that the receiver will understand him.
Stage 2: Encoding
Meanings and ideas are structures of the mind. Encode your ideas into symbols which you are sure will be correctly understood by the receiver.
Stage 3: Transmission
An idea or meaning which has been encoded into symbols is called a message. The word symbols have to be either spoken, or written and displayed; the gestures have to be shown; the music has to be performed, and so on with other symbols.
Stage 4: Reception
Environmental conditions have a direct bearing on fidelity. But beyond that, fidelity depends on which and how many of the receiver’s five senses are activated to receive the message: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling. (The fidelity of our senses is in this order.)
Stage 5: Decoding
The receiver, having received the encoded message, must now decode it in order to comprehend its meaning. One can not decode a message whose symbols one does not recognize. It does happen that we receive messages which seem incomprehensible to us, as when someone speaks to us in language we do not know. In such cases we usually try to communicate to the source that we do not understand him
Stage 6: Assimilation (final stage in the simple one-way communication process)
In order to “ make sense” of the decoded message, to understand it, the receiver must relate it to what he already knows and assimilate it within the total information available to him. The more life experience a person has had, the more likely it is that his store of knowledge will contain elements with which he can make sense out of a new ideas and meanings.
To summarize, the communication process involves four basic elements and six stages.
The four elements are: 1.) The source, 2.) The receiver, 3.) The message, and 4.) The channel.
The six stages of the process are: 1.) Creation, 2.) Encoding 3.) Transmission, 4.) Reception, 5.) Decoding, 6.) Assimilation
At the core of all extension work lies the process of communication. Indeed, the very term “extension work” was chosen by its originators to convey the idea of communication lines extending beyond the boundaries of the universities to include the rural population in the surrounding countryside, and urban marginal communities.
All extension workers, however diverse their specific fields of expertise maybe, must be highly skilled communicators, because they stand and work at a crucial intersection of a widespread communication network. This network encompasses the rural population, the various service centers in towns and cities such as markets, supplies, experiment stations, educational facilities, and local as well as governmental agencies. ~
Posted by Abe V. Rotor at 9:25 PM
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3 comments:
Hannah Nalupa said...As a Communication Arts student, we define communication as an exchange of information. An exchange meaning there is two-way communication. In the form of communication mentioned in this blog, I would like to add FEEDBACK to the communication process. The process does not just end in assimilation. With feedback, the process becomes a cycle. It is in this part of the communication process that we realize whether there has been an effect to the receiver the message that was transmitted and know how it was understood or decoded.
NALUPA, Hannah Kattrina T.
4CA5March 7, 2011 at 11:23 PM
Mia Joanna Reyes said..."Only when the source knows clearly what he wants to communicate is it likely that the receiver will understand him." I agree with this statement, firstly, one cannot deliver their messages clearly if they themselves do not have a clear idea of what is on their mind. Communicating does not just mean speaking, it means sending out important messages to individuals and making a difference.
"Encode your ideas into symbols" It is like semiotics, when it comes to signs, the meanings are already known by the individuals. Like in development communication, there is not only communication to improve the society but signs like if you place a "recycle" symbol, it would be understood by people but the thing is people tend to ignore these signs so its important that symbols are made sure to be received by audiences.
"An idea or meaning which has been encoded into symbols is called a message." You need to really show people these signs and have to catch attention and to send these symbols verbally and through actions, we have to encode then transmit these symbols which becomes the main message one is trying to send to its audience. "fidelity depends on which and how many of the receiver’s five senses are activated to receive the message: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling." Of course in order to send your messages, you need to have all these five senses, to communicate and send messages, you need to reach to all these senses. Like in development communication, you not only have to act but also perform these ways to send your message and trigger these senses.
"One can not decode a message whose symbols one does not recognize." the need to explain these symbols and messages is important since how much you communicate and want responsive actions, if people do not understand the meanings of these messages you would get to nowhere. As we have studied in development communication, it is important to make people aware of the things, signs, messages around them so that they would be able to act and fight against problems and issues of society.
" The more life experience a person has had, the more likely it is that his store of knowledge will contain elements with which he can make sense out of a new ideas and meanings."
Assimilation, one step that is the most important for there to be success and progress. One would not understand if they have not had experience. It is important for there to be participation of others.
Development communication has helped many individuals to take action and have knowledge of the issues around us and move to solve these. Especially with lessons I have learned in class, I was enlightened and now aware of the moves and steps in order to be a part of improving and making our society better.
Mia Joanna B. Reyes
4ca5
USTMarch 8, 2011 at 7:17 PM
Ria Salaveria said...A process is defined as something that has steps in order for the beginning to reach the end. In communication, there's a sender and a receiver. A sender is the one that formulates the message, encodes it and then sends it. On the other hand, the receiver is the one that receives the message, decodes it and then absorbs or assimilates it.
SALAVERIA, Ria
4CA5March 9, 2011 at 12:52 PM
NOTE: Dr Abe V Rotor attended DevCom Course at the Afro-Asian Institute as representative of the committee on food and agriculture of the Senate of the Philippines in 1992. Dr Rotor studied Israel's Kibbutz system. A kibbutz is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises.
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