Communication Models
The purpose of this essay is to discuss Denis McQuail’s four concepts of communication in contemporary Western culture. It will be discussed in this essay how each media form exhibits a communication model and to what extent that it does so. It will also be discussed whether each of these models are independent or correlated. For each communication model, a different media form will be used to explain how it is being manifested. Television broadcasting will be used to explain the transmission model, magazine advertisements will be used to explain the publicity model, websites will be used to shed light on the ritual model and lastly, newspapers will be used to prove the existence of the reception model.
The four communication models of McQuail’s are representations of the process of public communication. The most basic form is the transmission model, which is theorised by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver. The transmission model ‘transmits a fixed “quantity” of information – the message as determined by the sender or the source’ (McQuail 1994, pp. 49-50) with considerations of how accurate is the information sent during the communicating process.
The information source produces the message before it goes through the transmitter that encodes the message into signals. Upon entering the channel where signals are adapted for transmission, “noise” may be an input that distorts the message. It is then sent to the receiver where the message is decoded from signals before arriving at the intended destination. For example, television programs are transmitted through the antenna of the broadcasting station to the satellite air chain where we receive it through the cable or antenna of our television sets. The “noise” in this example may refer to the bad weather or static causing poor signals sent to our screens.
On Mediacorp’s News 5 Tonight, the transmission model manifests it by feeding its’ audience with daily events and updates. The audience decodes the message
The four communication models of McQuail’s are representations of the process of public communication. The most basic form is the transmission model, which is theorised by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver. The transmission model ‘transmits a fixed “quantity” of information – the message as determined by the sender or the source’ (McQuail 1994, pp. 49-50) with considerations of how accurate is the information sent during the communicating process.
The information source produces the message before it goes through the transmitter that encodes the message into signals. Upon entering the channel where signals are adapted for transmission, “noise” may be an input that distorts the message. It is then sent to the receiver where the message is decoded from signals before arriving at the intended destination. For example, television programs are transmitted through the antenna of the broadcasting station to the satellite air chain where we receive it through the cable or antenna of our television sets. The “noise” in this example may refer to the bad weather or static causing poor signals sent to our screens.
On Mediacorp’s News 5 Tonight, the transmission model manifests it by feeding its’ audience with daily events and updates. The audience decodes the message
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