The Characteristics of Business Communication

Business communication is a special facet of human communication. In business organizations people working in coordination to produce, market goods and provide services for mutual profit are essentially goal-oriented and need to communicate effectively. Persing has defined business communication as “the spiraling process of transaction of meaning through symbolic action involving all elements associated with the sending and receiving written, oral and non verbal messages, internal and external to organizations of paid people working together to produce and market goods and services for profit.” Business communication, as emphasized in this definition, is a spiraling process as communication between sender and receiver does not start at the same level of ability, understanding, behavior and psyche. External factors as noise, time, and culture also have an impact on communication in the business world. Therefore communication takes a spiral shape in the process of being transmitted from the sender to the receiver. On Continue reading

Supportive Communication – Meaning and Attributes

Communication is an everyday activity. It is the ordinary interaction that occurs between coworkers, friends, acquaintances, or intimates on daily bases. Communication comes in different forms. Verbal communication which includes sounds, words, language and speaking whiles non-verbal communication involves physical ways of communication like, tone of voice, touch, smell and body language. The quality of communication and how communications are evolves and is maintained are the basis of whether a relationship amongst individuals are stable, become more intimate when appropriate and if additional information is shared between individual reflecting trust between the both parties in every facet of human life. Ineffective communication may lead individual to dislike each other, be offended by each other, lose confidence, refuse to listen and disagree to each other as well as causing a host of other interpersonal problem. Normally positive interpersonal relationships results when always things are going on well and people do what Continue reading

Mass Communication – Definition, Components, and Functions

Outside the realm of interpersonal communication exists another form of communication, which involves communication with mass audiences and hence the name mass communication; and the channels through which this kind of communication takes place are referred to as mass media. Both mass communication and mass media are generally considered synonymous for the sake of convenience. Mass communication is unique and different from interpersonal communication as evident from the following definition. Any mechanical device that multiplies messages and takes it to a large number of people simultaneously is called mass communication. The media through which messages are being transmitted include radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, films, records, tape recorders, video cassette recorders, etc and require large organizations and electronic devices to put across the message. It is clear from the definition that mass communication is a special kind of communication in which the nature of the audience and the feedback is different Continue reading

Introduction to Group Communication

Group communication is an extension of interpersonal communication where more than two individuals are involved in exchange of ideas, skills and interests. A group is a number of people with a common goal who interact with one another to accomplish their goals, recognize one another’s existence and see themselves as part of the group. Groups provide an opportunity for people to come together to discuss and exchange views of common interest. There could be many different groups for as many different reasons. For instance, casually formed groups with friends over a drink, coffee break, games, dances or religious gatherings have a different purpose than that of groups attending a meeting or seminar to help fight AIDS or interacting with committee members to draft a proposal. Communication in a group, small or big, serves many goals including collective decision-making, self-expression, increasing one’s effect, elevating one’s status and relaxation. Group communication is Continue reading

Process of Communication – Communication Process

The most basic form of communication is a process in which two or more persons attempt to consciously or unconsciously influence each other through the use of symbols or words to satisfy their respective needs.  The communication process is dynamic, continuous, irreversible, and contextual. It is not possible to participate in any element of the communication process without acknowledging the existence and functioning of the other elements. The communication process goes through several phases. Here is a description of those phases. 1. The Sender has an Idea Difficult to think of someone “trying to make common,” to communicate, if that person has nothing to share. Yet, thinking of the sender as needing to have an idea in order to start the communication process is misleading since everything people do and everything people are communicates something to others. The intent of this phase is to start the process at a time Continue reading

Priestley’s Paradox – Impact of Technology on Communication

Communication is an essential part of everyday life. There are many things which have effect on communication, technology having a very large effect. Through the increase of communication technology, there has been a decrease in the quality of effective communication. While considering the theory of Priestley’s Paradox, the lack of interpersonal communication in new forms of technology have significantly affected the quality of communication. Modern technologies decrease the quality of communications through the lack of verbal and non-verbal feedback, the distortion of messages and also the unequal access to forms of these technologies. Verbal and non-verbal elements of interpersonal communication have effectively declined due to technology. The most impacted area of communication in society today is interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication is referenced as communication between two or more people which try to create and understand meaning. Throughout interpersonal communication there can be noise. Noise is anything which can distort or Continue reading