Models of Communication Linear Model

The first formal model within information theory was Shannons mathematical model of communication, developed in the 1940s, which laid out a linear schema of production, transmission, channel, receiver, and destination. According to this model, information is sent by one person and subsequently received and processed by another. In this framework, communication is not seen as a problem; once the information has been sent out it will automatically be processed at the other end. Interactive Model

The interactive communication model is a way to represent how two people communicate. One person, the sender, wants to send a piece of information, the message. The sender uses a communication channel, such as email or faceto-face conversation, to a second person, the receiver. Sometimes noise, a term referring to any distractions, will compromise the message. Once the receiver has the message, he or she will send feedback, letting the sender know whether the message was transmitted well and how the receiver feels about it. The communication of both people, the sender and receiver, is influenced by their individual experiences, culture, and knowledge. This is called their field of experience.

Socio-cultural Model Sociocultural communication theory, which derives from twentieth century sociological and anthropological thought, is a sixth tradition. Sociocultural theory conceptualizes communication as a symbolic process that produces and reproduces shared meanings, rituals, and social structures. As John Dewey noted in Democracy and Education (New York, 1916), society exists not only by but in communication. That is, society exists not only by using communication as a necessary tool for transmitting and exchanging information. To communicate as a member of society is to participate in those coordinated, collective activities and shared understandings that constitute society itself. Transactional Model

This model acknowledges neither creators nor consumers of messages, preferring to label the people associated with the model as communicators who both create and consume messages. The model presumes additional symmetries as well, with each participant creating messages that are received by the other communicator. This is, in many ways, an excellent model of the face-toface interactive process which extends readily to any interactive medium that provides users with symmetrical interfaces for creation and consumption of messages, including notes, letters, C.B. Radio, electronic mail, and the radio. It is, however, a distinctly interpersonal model that implies an equality between communicators that often doesn't exist, even in interpersonal contexts.