1.3 Communication is a Process

Communication is a Process 

Let’s back up to the basics and talk about the eight essential components of communication that can be found as part of the transactional model of communication. 

Researchers have observed that when communication takes place, the source and the receiver may send messages at the same time, often overlapping. You, as the speaker, will often play both roles, as source and receiver. You’ll focus on the communication and the reception of your messages to the audience. The audience will respond in the form of feedback that will give you important clues.  

Rather than looking at the source sending a message and someone receiving it as two distinct acts, researchers often view communication as a transactional process (Image 1.3) with actions often happening at the same time. The distinction between source and receiver is blurred in conversational turn-taking, for example, where both participants play both roles simultaneously. 

Each of these eight components serves an integral function in the overall process. Let’s explore them one by one. 

Source 

The source imagines, creates, and sends the message. The source encodes a message by choosing specific words and nonverbal methods. The sender chooses not only what to say, but how to say it – and this should be very dependent upon how they feel the message will be received based on the receiver’s knowledge, attitude, and experience. In a public speaking situation, the source is the person giving the speech. They convey the message by sharing new information with the audience. The speaker also conveys a message through his or her tone of voice, body language, and choice of clothing. The speaker begins by first determining the message—what to say and how to say it. The second step involves encoding the message by choosing just the right order or the perfect words to convey the intended meaning. The third step is to present or send the information to the receiver or audience. Finally, by watching for the audience’s reaction, the source perceives how well they received the message and responds with clarification or supporting information. 

Message 

“The message is the stimulus or meaning produced by the source for the receiver or audience” (McLean, 2005). When you plan to give a speech or write a report, your message may seem to be only the words you choose that will convey your meaning. But that is just the beginning. The words are brought together with grammar and organization. You may choose to save your most important point for last. The message also consists of how you say it—in a speech, with your tone of voice, body language, and appearance—and in a report, with your writing style, punctuation, and the headings and formatting you choose. In addition, part of the message may be the environment or context you present it in and the noise that might make your message hard to hear or see. 

Imagine, for example, that you are addressing a large audience of sales reps and are aware there is a World Series game tonight. Your audience might have a hard time settling down, but you may choose to open with, “I understand there is an important game tonight.” In this way, by expressing verbally something that most people in your audience are aware of and interested in, you might grasp and focus their attention. 

Channel 

“The channel is the way in which a message or messages travel between source and receiver” (McLean, 2005). When you communicate, you are using a channel to convey your message. Spoken channels include face-to-face conversations, facetime conversations, Zoom/MS Teams Meetings/Google Hangout, speeches, telephone conversations, voice mail messages, radio, public address systems, and even TikTok/Reels. Written channels include text messages, emails, MS Teams Chats, Slack messages, tweets (X), letters, memos, reports, purchase orders, invoices, newspaper and magazine articles, websites, blogs, and so forth. 

Receiver 

“The receiver receives the message from the source, analyzing and interpreting the message in ways both intended and unintended by the source” (McLean, 2005). This interpretation is called decoding.  To better understand this component, think of a receiver on a football team. The quarterback throws the football (message) to a receiver, who must see and interpret where to catch the ball. The quarterback may intend for the receiver to “catch” his message in one way, but the receiver may see things differently and miss the football (the intended meaning) altogether. 

As a receiver, you listen, see, touch, smell, and/or taste to receive a message. Your audience “sizes you up,” much as you might check them out long before you take the stage or open your mouth. The nonverbal responses of your listeners can serve as clues on how to adjust your opening. By imagining yourself in their place, you anticipate what you would look for if you were them. Just as a quarterback plans where the receiver will be in order to place the ball correctly, you too can recognize the interaction between source and receiver in a business communication context. All of this happens at the same time, illustrating why and how communication is always changing. 

Feedback 

When you respond to the source, intentionally or unintentionally, you are giving feedback. Feedback is composed of messages the receiver sends back to the source. Verbal or nonverbal, all these feedback signals allow the source to see how well, how accurately (or how poorly and inaccurately) the message was received. Feedback also provides an opportunity for the receiver or audience to ask for clarification, to agree or disagree, or to indicate that the source could make the message more interesting. As the amount of feedback increases, the accuracy of communication also increases (Leavitt & Mueller, 1951). 

For example, suppose you are a sales manager participating in a conference call with four sales reps. As the source, you want to tell the reps to take advantage of the fact that it is World Series season to close sales on baseball-related sports gear. You state your message, but you hear no replies from your listeners. You might assume that this means they understood and agreed with you, but later in the month you might be disappointed to find that very few sales were made. If you followed up your message with a request for feedback (“Does this make sense? Do any of you have any questions?”) you might have an opportunity to clarify your message, and to find out whether any of the sales reps believed your suggestion would not work with their customers. 

Environment 

“The environment is the atmosphere, physical and psychological, where you send and receive messages” (McLean, 2005). The environment can include the tables, chairs, lighting, and sound equipment that are in the room. The room itself is an example of the environment. The environment can also include factors like formal dress, that may indicate whether a discussion is open and caring or more professional and formal. People may be more likely to have an intimate conversation when they are physically close to each other, and less likely when they can only see each other from across the room. In that case, they may text each other, itself an intimate form of communication. The choice to text is influenced by the environment. As a speaker, your environment will impact and play a role in your speech. It’s always a good idea to go check out where you’ll be speaking before the day of the actual presentation. Similarly, it's a good idea to test the technological elements for a virtual presentation ahead of time as well. 

Context 

“The context of the communication interaction involves the setting, scene, and expectations of the individuals involved” (McLean, 2005). A professional communication context may involve business suits (environmental cues) that directly or indirectly influence expectations of language and behavior among the participants. 

A presentation or discussion does not take place as an isolated event. When you came to class, you came from somewhere. So did the person seated next to you, as did the instructor. The degree to which the environment is formal or informal depends on the contextual expectations for communication held by the participants. The person sitting next to you may be used to informal communication with instructors, but this particular instructor may be used to verbal and nonverbal displays of respect in the academic environment. You may be used to formal interactions with instructors as well, and find your classmate’s question of “Hey Teacher, do we have homework today?” as rude and inconsiderate when they see it as normal. The nonverbal response from the instructor will certainly give you a clue about how they perceive the interaction, both the word choices and how they were said. 

Context is all about what people expect from each other, and we often create those expectations out of environmental cues. Traditional gatherings like weddings or quinceañeras are often formal events. There is a time for quiet social greetings, a time for silence as the bride walks down the aisle, or the father may have the first dance with his daughter. In either celebration there may come a time for rambunctious celebration and dancing. You may be called upon to give a toast, and the wedding or quinceañera context will influence your presentation, timing, and effectiveness. 

In a business meeting, who speaks first? That probably has some relation to the position and role each person has outside the meeting. Context plays a very important role in communication, particularly across cultures. 

Interference 

Interference, also called noise, can come from any source. “Interference is anything that blocks or changes the source’s intended meaning of the message” (McLean, 2005). Interferences can be internal or external, to one's self. External interferences would include things in the environment that distract such as cars going by, an uncomfortable temperature, or a funky smell.  External interferences could also include linguistic interferences such as a speaker's accent or a different language – even technical jargon could cause linguistic interference. Internal interferences would include anything going on inside one's self that may distract the body or the mind – physiological (e.g. having a headache, being hungry, being tired) or psychological (e.g. thinking about a meeting you just had, an important project coming up, or expecting a phone call/email). Some interferences happen outside of yourself but can become internal if they begin to affect how your body functions or occupy your thoughts. It's also important to note that all individuals experience different interferences and neurodivergent individuals may experience additional interferences.   

Imagine that it is 4:45 p.m. and your boss, who is at a meeting in another city, e-mails you asking for last month’s sales figures, an analysis of current sales projections, and the sales figures from the same month for the past five years. You may open the e-mail, start to read, and think, “Great—no problem—I have those figures and that analysis right here in my computer.” You fire off a reply with last month’s sales figures and the current projections attached. Then, at five o’clock, you turn off your computer and go home. The next morning, your boss calls on the phone to tell you he was inconvenienced because you neglected to include the sales figures from the previous years. What was the problem? Interference: by thinking about how you wanted to respond to your boss’s message, you prevented yourself from reading attentively enough to understand the whole message. 

Noise interferes with normal encoding and decoding of the message carried by the channel between source and receiver. Not all noise is bad, but noise interferes with the communication process. For example, a notification alert on your cell phone may be a welcome noise to you, but it may interrupt the communication process in class and bother your classmates. 

Attribution: 

Information for this section was modified from 

Business Communication for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. 

References: 

Adler, R. B., Rodman, G. R., & Dupré A. (2021). Essential communication. Oxford University Press. 

Leavitt, H., & Mueller, R. (1951). Some effects of feedback on communication. Human Relations 4, pp. 401–410. 

Lucas, S. E. (2019). The art of public speaking. McGraw-Hill. 

McLean, S. (2003). The basics of speech communication. Allyn & Bacon. 

McLean, S. (2005). The basics of interpersonal communication. Allyn & Bacon. 

Pearce, W. B., & Cronen, V. (1980). Communication, action, and meaning: The creating of social realities. Praeger. 

Pearson, J., & Nelson, P. (2000). An introduction to human communication: Understanding and sharing. McGraw-Hill.