Communication Strategies

This paper talks about the Sender  Message  Receiver Model and describes the way it operates as one of the key models  approaches in the world of communication. The paper starts off with a brief introduction to the model after which it analyzes its efficiency in communication techniques and approaches. The paper also demonstrates a thorough understanding of the approach by including a critique on the subject through providing limitations of it. To further gauge understanding level reached through working on this paper, it has been applied in a cultural context as well to try apply the concept in the real world.

Communication is very important in todays world. It is the giving and receiving of meaning, the transfer of thoughts from one entity to another, without which functioning of this world will not be possible at all. The Sender  message - Receiver Model is a very prominent model amongst the many popular models of communication that exist. According to this model, the process of communication basically starts off with the sender or the source (S) transmitting some sort of a message or meaning (M), to a receiver (R) who gathers the meaning through the message that was transmitted to him or her (Seitel, 2001, pp. 3  27.). The basic gist of the approach according to Wintgens, Thion, and Carly, (2005) in pages 34 to 38, hence is built upon the fact that meaning needs to be shared between two or more parties for communication to take place.

There are stages in the sender  message  receiver model, which include firstly an encoding stage and secondly a decoding stage. In the encoding stage, message is sent or dispatched to the receiver, whereas in the decoding stage, this message that was sent earlier is interpreted in terms of meaning so that the receiver can take some sort of an action. A more contemporary version of the sender  message  receiver (SMR) model hence is the sender  encoding - message  decoding  receiver model (SEMDR) (Zappala, and Carden, 2004, pp. 13 - 19).

Limitations of the sender  message  receiver (SMR) model as an analytical tool
The sender  message  receiver (SMR) model is a very basic approach to communication. It was devised by Aristotle  the Greek philosopher who came up with the three elements  Sender, Message and Receiver in the model back in around 300 BC (Kress, 1993, pp. 1 - 10). Therefore, the biggest limitation that there exists in the sender  message  receiver (SMR) model is that of providing the reader only with very elementary understanding which in a complex world like the one we live in deems weak. Also, another very important limitation would be that the SMR model fails to explain or highlight the complexity of relationships and contextual situations in todays world  especially when we talk about interpersonal communication. (Roger, and Rogers, 1970, pp. 180 - 210)

When this model is compared to more complex models of communication like the Lasswells model or Shannon and Weavers model we see the absence of many elements from the former. David Berlo too added to the SMR model by the inclusion of Channel (C) after which he was able to stress upon the five verbal communication skills namely speaking, writing, thought  reasoning, reading and listening (Goff, 1989, pp. 289 - 295). The medium through which a message is sent plays a huge role in communication which can also be seen in the Shannon and Weavers model where they have stressed upon noise in the medium chosen too affecting the overall effectiveness of the communication process. However, the sender  message  receiver (SMR) model fails to include the above as well. It is surprising to note that medium, which plays a huge role in the overall understanding of a message is actually not there in the SMR approach to communication pointing towards the lack of comprehensiveness in this model, deeming it incomplete since understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the channel that is being used for communication is highly important for making sure that the process is effective (as often times the medium alone can completely twist the message) (CoME, 2007).

Applying the S-M-R Model in cultural context
There are a lot of involuntary distortions that take place when communicating resulting into a message either not being sent in the right way or not being received the way the sender intended to send it. In the cultural context this is a major problem in communication and hence extreme caution in selection of words, gestures, meaning and channel needs to be present at all times. An example of the S-M-R approach not being effective in the cultural context would be for instance in Thailand an advertisement for donkeys Would you like to ride on your own ass would be taken very negatively in the American culture since it means something profane in the US English. Similarly ladies may have a fit upstairs in Hong Kong would be interpreted in England as some psychological problem or traumatic experience that the ladies might receive by going upstairs. In this case, more complex models of communication should be used in conjunction with a high priority given to understanding of the culture one is in. (Seitel, pp. 3 - 18).